When the members of the Able Flight “Class of 2022” arrive at Purdue University in late May, they’ll have only one day to get settled in the dorm and have orientation at the dispatch hangar.
On their second day they’ll begin six to seven weeks of daily flights to prepare them for a checkride in early July.
Non-profit Able Flight awards flight training scholarships to people with physical disabilities. Since 2006, it has given more than 115 scholarships.
Two of this year’s class are veterans and, in a first for Able Flight, all six use wheelchairs due to the results of accidents, illness, or a combat injury.
They will fly one of three specially-adapted Sky Arrows, and will be taught by instructors who are upper level undergraduates or graduate school students in Purdue’s School of Aviation and Transportation Technology. This year marks Able Flight’s 12th year of partnership with Purdue.
The members of the Class of 2022:
- Andy Burnette of Florida is a veteran wounded in combat. While Andy was serving as an infantry platoon medic in Afghanistan, a sniper round pierced his spine, leaving him a quadriplegic.
- Ryan Chen of California is a paraplegic who uses a wheelchair due to an injury sustained in a snowboarding accident in 2009. He is a blackbelt in Kendo, and is co-founder of Neurogum, a consumer products company.
- Stephanie Cibello of Pennsylvania has served as an EMT and is active in Women In Aviation. She uses a wheelchair as a result of a birth defect affecting her right leg.
- Austin “Chance” Field of Texas spent several summers working around planes at an FBO operated by his aunt and uncle before serving in the Navy. In 2006, he was paralyzed when he was injured in a motor vehicle accident.
- Nathaniel Miller of Arizona graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in architecture and is working on becoming a licensed architect. He became a quadriplegic as a result of a diving accident, and has competed in wheelchair rugby on the collegiate level.
- Chris Murad of Georgia graduated from Georgia Tech with an aerospace engineering degree. He became paralyzed in 2016 when shot during a robbery as he was leaving work.
While the Able Flight scholarship winners don’t begin their flight training at Purdue until May, their work begins much earlier. For four months before they arrive at the university, they will have been ground school students thanks to an online course donated by Sporty’s Pilot Shop supplemented by live remote instruction from Purdue, according to Able Flight officials.
Congrats to all of these future pilots!