The Following article appeared on the front page of this popular Los Angeles newspaper
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Today is Sunday, March 04, 2007 |
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A flying start for students |
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Program puts Westchester middle school students on a course to become pilots. » PHOTO GALLERY: Learning to Fly
The La Rouche family's thrill-seeking has rubbed off on 13-year-old Kevin, who spends hours on testosterone-friendly toys like radio-controlled planes, dirt bikes and motorcycles. Now Kevin's latest pursuit -- flying a single-engine plane by himself -- is getting some lift at Wright Middle School, the only campus with a flight-training program in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The newly created program with 65 middle-school students getting flight instruction is in expansion mode. Later this month, the Westchester school will broaden the program by opening a second computer lab, decked out with about 20 state-of-the-art flight simulators with software allowing students to fly from general aviation airports in Hawthorne and Van Nuys. The high-power simulators are sheathed in shiny red and green housings and look like souped-up video games. The program doesn't arrange live flights for its students -- the school district won't provide insurance coverage -- but students can take the initiative to fly with a private instructor at a local airport themselves. The training they receive in the classroom dramatically reduces the time and cost of getting a pilot's license from a local school. So far, Kevin is the only student at Wright to pursue a pilot's license though two others have used their classroom training to fly at local airports. He's already logged three official hours toward the 40 required by the Federal Aviation Administration for a pilot's license. He can't fly solo for another two years, but a trip to Canada (where the legal age to fly an aircraft is 14) isn't out of the question. Kevin enrolled at Wright Middle more than a year ago, transferring from a nearby Catholic school. He signed up for the flight-simulator elective in the spring, which stoked his interest in flight. What started out as a novelty has proved academically useful, stabilizing Kevin's grades and giving him a clearer direction in his young life, father Mark La Rouche said. "It's given him a focal point and a purpose," La Rouche said. "Now he's looking at it as something he can do."
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Encouraging pre-teens and teenagers to learn to fly before they learn to drive a car is only one goal of the flight classes at Wright. Students in the classes spend three days a week with the simulators and two days learning about flight maps, aeronautics and other conceptual material. Wright's principal, Stephen Rochelle, added the flight-training program in June to open students minds to a possible career path in the aeronautics or aerospace industry so prevalent in Southern California. "It's very unusual for pre-adolescents to be exposed to real-world jobs that are as exciting as being a pilot," Rochelle said. "Programs like this have the power to do tremendous things for families." The program also brings home the importance of mathematics to students on the verge of tackling algebra and geometry, Rochelle said. Kevin and other students in the program acknowledge the similarities between the simulators and video games. And that's a good thing, according to a USC researcher. Their familiarity with Xbox, PlayStation and other consoles gives them an edge, said Todd Richmond, a researcher with the USC Annenberg Center for Communication. Middle school students have grown up exclusively in the digital age and have developed better multitasking skills, Richmond said. "They just think differently than we do," Richmond said. "If we're going to reach them in the classroom, we need to come up with different tools and approaches to get them engaged." The vocational nature of the program, parents and students say, is its strong suit, especially with the move in Los Angeles Unified to break up the district's crowded campuses into more manageable educational units. Wright's program is a first step to a K-12 aeronautics track in Westchester schools, officials said. The popularity of Wright Middle School's flight training has led to a similar program at the Flight Path Learning Center of Southern California near Los Angeles International Airport. In mid-February, four simulators were installed in a side room of the former charter airline terminal that houses the center. The simulators will be geared to high school students at first, said Lee Nichols, the executive director.
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"We're not giving flying lessons here," Nichols said. "We're basically motivating them to have an interest in aviation careers." The center is using the Aviation Career Education program, started by the Federal Aviation Administration to introduce teenagers to the aviation field. Students from various Southern California schools will visit the center on field trips, Nichols said. Superintendent David Brewer III visited Wright in December to see the program. He flew an F-18 fighter through Los Angeles airspace on a simulator. "This is an excellent example of bringing future work force opportunities into a middle school, so kids can have a hands-on experience as they look forward to what they're going to be doing in the future," said school board President Marlene Canter. "We're looking for more partnerships like that as we move to small learning community communities across the district." Kevin may in fact become an airline pilot someday, but for now he's focused on the task at hand. Like the various color belts in martial arts, acquiring a pilot's license requires a person to achieve mastery of over increasingly challenging levels of expertise. The flight instructor who helped establish Wright Middle School's program modeled it after the Navy's nine levels that require pilots to accomplish various tasks before they can be eligible for certification. Barry Trop modeled Wright Middle's program on a flight simulator he developed with Robin Petgrave at Compton's airport in 2002. Several of Trop's students quickly developed an aptitude for flying on the simulators using only the instruments, he said. "I had kids who didn't leave the inner city," Trop said. "I would have 11-year-olds who could fly in the clouds."
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In June 2006, Jonathan Strickland became the youngest person to fly both a helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft on the same day. He's also the youngest African-American to fly a helicopter by himself. Following 7-year-old Jessica Dubroff's tragic death in 1996 when she crashed near Cheyenne, Wyo., trying to become the youngest person to fly coast to coast, federal legislation was passed that prohibits anyone who doesn't hold at least a private pilot certificate and medical certificate from manipulating the controls of a plane. The Guinness World Records book discontinued its Youngest Pilot section in 1989 to discourage children who don't have the skills or spatial thinking needed for flying. At Wright Middle School, students who clear levels on the simulator are given a "flight ticket." On a recent day, students flew a simulated trip from Hawthorne to Chino using a Cessna 172 single-engine trainer. Sixth-grader Kyle Orgel completed his first task by taking off, climbing to 2,000 feet and leveling off. "It took awhile," Orgel said. "Every instant changes. If you make one mistake, it's going to affect everything." Kevin has been a bit of a prodigy. He enrolled in the flight program the first semester it was offered back in February 2006 and passed the nine levels by June. In September, he began flying out of Benbow Aviation at Torrance's airport. On a recent Saturday, Kevin headed to the airport to log his third official hour toward the license. With a clear, bright-blue sky as a backdrop, he circled his four-seat plane and inspected the aircraft.
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As part of his routine, he poked a fuel strainer into a hole under the wing to test the fuel. Holding up the glass vial to the sun, it showed a blue tint indicating the absence of water. That would helped ensure the plane wouldn't stall. Students who have trained on simulators are better prepared to fly planes, said instructor Ismar Audic, who's training his own 8-year-old son to fly. They also tend to complete the 40-hour requirement in half the time and at half the cost, he said. An hour with an instructor and plane rental costs about $150. "Usually, the regular student starts by learning in the plane," Audic said. With Audic beside him, Kevin taxied to the runway and pulled the throttle, accelerating the plane until it climbed into the sky with Torrance shrinking below him on the landscape. As his plane floated above the water off the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Kevin executed two steep turns, dropping about 250 feet in altitude, then accelerating back to 3,500 feet. After takeoff, the adrenaline subsides, he said. "When I'm up there, it's kind of easy to forget everything," he said later. "The only thing I'm thinking about is what I'm doing then. It's kind of like I'm focusing on doing the best I can." |