New Able Flight pilots to be honored at AirVenture

Able Flight will pin wings on its newest pilots at a special ceremony Tuesday July 24, at AirVenture in Oshkosh.

Family, friends and special guests will be there to honor scholarship winners who took part in the third annual Able Flight/Purdue University joint training project this summer.

Five of the six pilots who trained at Purdue will be on hand to get their wings. Attending are Jason Jernigan, Wesley Major, Devon Radloff, Tyrell Rhodes and Matt Sponaugle. The pilots were part of a six-week intensive training program where they were taught by university instructors while living in university housing.

(L-R) Wesley Major, Jason Jernigan, Matt Sponaugle, Tyrell Rhodes, Devon Radloff and Steven Scott.

The partnership between Able Flight and Purdue University’s Department of Aviation Technology offers the scholarship recipients the opportunity to learn to fly in a university setting, and provides the university the opportunity to continue to expand their outreach to flight students with physical disabilities, and to be exposed to Sport Pilot training in Light Sport Aircraft.

Also being honored is pilot Jessica Scharle who recently earned her FAA Airline Dispatcher Certificate with support of an Able Flight Career Training Scholarship funded by the TBMOPA Foundation.

Special guests at the ceremony will include air show legend Michael Goulian, Able Flight pilot Jessica Cox, representatives of Purdue’s Department of Aviation Technology and the TBMOPA Foundation, and Able Flight sponsors Bombardier, Aircraft Spruce, ForeFlight, Flying High Coffee and Sandia Aerospace.

Able Flight, a national nonprofit that provides flight and career training opportunities for people with physical disabilities, is the only one of its kind in the United States. For more information: AbleFlight.org.

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