The 100 Mile Flying Club hosted a Fun Flight Day for local students recently.
Taking off from the 100 Mile House Airport, a pilot flew half a dozen youth in a Cessna 172 for short jaunts around the area after walking them around the aircraft and explaining some of the ins and outs of flying.
“Aviation is such a foreign thing for people,” says Len Aune, one of the Flying Club's directors. “At this grassroots level, we keep it as simple as possible.”
The event sort of tied into an aviation course for grades 10-12 students at Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School.
The theory of flight, aircraft engines, meteorology and navigation are some of the things students learn about in the class, explains teacher Ian Watson.
“This is perfect to add to the course,” Watson says of Fun Flight Day. “It's tough to have an aviation class without having the kids do some flying.
"It's really neat the Flying Club offered this opportunity. Hopefully, in September, when we have a full class, we can bring them down [to the airport to get a ride].”
An ongoing project that different aviation classes have worked on throughout the years is the construction of a three-seat Murphy Rebel aircraft at the South Cariboo Regional Airport in 108 Mile Ranch.
Grade 12 student Nathaniel Bryan graduated this semester. He was at the airport for Fun Flight Day with his sister, Kaytlyn, a Grade 10 student.
Nathaniel, whose grandfather was a pilot, plans to become a pilot in the Canadian Forces.
“It's very helpful to know a lot of basic information, like identification of runways, planes, the alphabet of aviation and all that,” he says of Watson's course at PSO.
“You get a longer time to mull over this information, so you're that much further ahead and more comfortable with it if you go into a career with it.”
The Cessna 172 is easy to fly and perfect for sightseeing, Aune explains before the students went up. The club likes to fly students over their neighbourhoods, so they can spot their homes from the air.
Nathaniel’s been up several times in the past. Once in a small tandem acrobatic plane, very different from the Cessna, capable of aerobatic maneuvers like barrel rolls and hammerheads.
“Picture: 'dizzy,'” he explains. “I think it's a great thing to fly.”