Young Eagles - EAA's program to expose as many kids to flying as possible. I mentioned Young Eagles in my early post as Abby flew her first RV flight with Jamie Painter on a Y.E. Day last month, soon after followed by her first flight in my airplane. This month, EAA690 needed more than the usual line-up of pilots because somewhere around 70 kids were expected to show up. I think most of the kids were fresh out of some aviation related summer camp.
I've never done the Y.E. thing before. I just never considered it with my old Archer, but the RV7 is a great plane for these events, so this past Saturday I decided it'd be fun to show our support for the Y.E. program. At around 8:15, I taxied my plane over into a growing line-up with a nice variety of planes. There were at least 3 RV's in the line, including an rv7a, rv6a, and my rv7. There was also the popular Piper Warrior, a classic 1947 Aeronca Chief, the speedy Beechcraft Bonanza, a beautiful and classic Sinson, the venerable Cessna 182, and a few others. Not too bad.
The folks at EAA690 really have it going on for these Young Eagle Days. There were at least a dozen non-piloting volunteers organizing the event. For the kids, the first stop is the sign-in station. From there, they each go to a "pre-flight briefing" session, and after that they're queued up for the ride. Once his or her name comes up, a handler in the line crew brings each kid with some paperwork out to the pilot and plane. My first Young Eagle was a nice kid named Matthew, around age 8, fresh out of the summer camp. I signed his Young Eagle paperwork, and introduced myself to his mother. I can only wonder what this mother is thinking as she's walking her kid over to this unpainted "homebuilt" airplane. Gennett would have run away, but Matthew's mom is going with the flow today.
I give Matthew and mom a brief intro to the plane, and help her set up a few pics. Now it's time to get this show on the road. Matthew climbs in, and I show him how a 5 point harness works. I get myself situated, and close the canopy to cracked position. "Clear Prop." I hit the starter, and the blades turn. And turn and turn and turn. Dangit! I knew this would happen. I don't have the "hot start" sequence nailed yet. It won't crank, presumably I've flooded the engine. I hit the starter again. More turns. More nothing. Dangit again! I can tell I'm sucking the battery dry, and I better find the magic formula soon. What must mother be thinking now? How 'bout, "get my kid outta that thing!" That's probably what I would have been thinking. Go figure out how to start your plane with some other kid. Hehe. Thankfully Mike Stewart runs over and prescribes his methods for hot start. Bang, she fires up.
I'm embarassed, but it's running, and Matthew may yet get a nice flight. He does. I followed Jamie's RV7 out of the airport to the south. Matthew's going to get the Stone Mountain run. We just loop around the mountain and head back. The flight takes maybe 20 minutes, and Matthew gets a chance to see the carving from a new perspective, plus some nice sightseeing enroute. With some hesitation, I convince him it's ok to take the controls and try his own hand at piloting the plane. A future pilot is born.
Once back at the airport, Matthew and I return to the hangar where the ground crew is ready with a nice Young Eagle certificate, and my next ride is ready to go. My next ride is a little less than random. It just so happens that a co-worker of mine, Phil Brass, was there that day getting his 8-yr old a ride in the Stinson. Phil's 15-yr old daughter, Katie, was just along to see her younger brother get a ride, but she didn't count on the persistence and peer pressure that Mike and I were more than willing to dish out. Katie was quite the sport, and with a thoughtful smile, she caved in to our shameless pressure tactics. Her first small airplane ride would be in my rv7.
After my earlier pitiful attempts at cranking, I was hoping to do a little better for Katie. It still took more turns of the blade to crank than I'd like to admit, but I got it going with slightly less trouble. By this point of the day, it was getting considerably hotter, and the winds were unusal for such a hot day. I decided to try the Lake Lanier run with Katie. One nice thing about the RV is that it can get up to cooler air pretty fast. Today, that also meant smoother and clearer air. At around 4000 feet, Katie seemed to be enjoying herself, so I brought up the possibility of doing a roll. The peer pressure today was ruthless. She agreed. I explained to her how it would go, and then we did it. Maybe that will be something to talk about with her friends. We then resumed straight and level tours of the lake, the dam, and the famous "cocktail cove" at Lanier Islands. On the way back, I warned her to expect turbulence, and we got every bit of it. There was also a nice crosswind landing. A great flight, but not the best conditions around the airport for young eagles. I decided I'm done for the day. At first, I felt a little guilty at leaving more burden on the other pilots to fly the remaining kids, but within 30 minutes, most of the other pilots had reached the same conclusion. Another Y.E. plane ran off into a ditch on takeoff, with no injury. (Think that poor kid is done with aviation for the rest of his life?!) And yet another plane had to break out the air sickness bags. Young Eagle Day was terminated early due to the hot turbulence and crosswinds. We were still able to get around 50 kids up in the air. For my case, I have my first two young eagles under the belt, and it was really neat that one of them was Katie, who was around 5 years old when I first met her dad. Katie, I hope you had half as much fun as I did.
