When Charles Stites, executive director of Able Flight, sent out his latest press release, he couldn’t help but boast about the non-profit’s latest milestone: “With 10 new scholarships, it looks like it will be a crowded stage for the wings pinning ceremony at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in July!”
Now in its 19th year, Able Flight awarded its greatest number of flight training scholarships for people with a disability in a single year, he says.
Since 2006 the non-profit organization has awarded more than 130 scholarships to people with a broad range of physical disabilities.
In just a few months, 10 new scholarship recipients who make up the “Class of 2024” will be on their way to one of two training locations to begin a two-month intensive flight training program, he reports.
While the second location is still being finalized, five of the pilots will train at Purdue University in Indiana, with the remainder at the second training site.
The new student pilots have already received their online ground school course courtesy of Sporty’s Pilot Shop, and over the next three months they’ll prepare for their written exam with the assistance of a live remote instructor from one of the training locations, Stites notes.
“Once they arrive at the university and check into their dorm, they’ll have one day to settle in before attending orientation,” he continues. “As soon as their second day, they’ll begin six to seven weeks of daily flights in adapted training aircraft to prepare them for their early July check ride.”
We’ve been covering Able Flight since the beginning (see here) and are huge proponents of the program.
Congratulations to Charles and the Class of 2024!
The Able Flight Class of 2024
Ian Azerado of New Jersey was already engaged in aviation when a skydiving accident on July 4, 2019, nearly cost him his life. But he not only survived, he pushed through recovery and rehabilitation to return to work where he is now his company’s chief engineer.
In 2021, he was awarded a Career Training Scholarship from Able Flight and earned a Light Sport Repairman Certificate. Soon after he purchased an Ercoupe 415C project plane. Now, with a flight training scholarship from Able Flight, Ian will be a certificated pilot just before he completes the total restoration of his Ercoupe.
Andrew Daigneau of Indiana comes from a family of flyers. His grandfather flew a cropduster and his dad was a bush pilot in Alaska. He planned to wait until he finished college to earn a private certificate and indulge his love for all things mechanical by becoming a pilot.
Andrew’s plans would be put at risk less than two years ago when on June 17, 2022, he was riding his motorcycle when the driver of an SUV hit him.
With exceptional care he survived, although his right leg had to be amputated above the knee. Even though the prognosis was that he would spend up to a year in the hospital and rehab, just months later Andrew was back in school at Notre Dame where he will graduate in May 2024, only days before he leaves for training to become a pilot.
Natallia Mirashnichenka now lives in New York City, but she spent her early years in Belarus where she was an avid swimmer who also loved cycling and hiking.
At the age of 14, Natallia became a paraplegic when surgery to remove a tumor on her spine left her paralyzed.
In 2014, her family moved to the United States and five years later, Natallia became a U.S. citizen and earned her college degree.
It was a trip to a nearby airport and a flight in a small plane that opened a new door for Natallia. That door seemed to close immediately when, after the flight, the instructor told her that due to her paralysis she would not be able to train.
And then she learned of Able Flight.
Now Natallia will take on yet another challenge that the paralyzed 14-year-old girl in Belarus could never have imagined: She will train to be a pilot.
Jake Simmons of Pennsylvania grew up as a self-described Army brat. With a father who served 20 years, it wasn’t surprising that Jake decided to enlist in the Army.
While still in high school he would “interview” Blackhawk pilots to try and learn as much as possible to prepare him for his planned future of becoming a pilot in the Army.
Shortly after joining, his goal was to be accepted into flight school and become a Warrant Officer. And that’s what he was working on when just a week before his Warrant Officer Flight Training Board appointment, he was struck by a car when riding his motorcycle.
What followed for Jake was paralysis of his left leg and an amputation.
After learning of Able Flight from a wounded veteran who has been through the program, Jake applied for and was awarded a scholarship.
Jordan Sprague of Indiana only recently graduated from high school, so when he joins the other members of his training class in May 2024, no doubt they’ll think of him as the “kid.”
His passion to be a pilot comes naturally, with his great grandfather and great uncles all being pilots “for the fun of it,” and one who flew for a living.
But Jordan hasn’t had as easy a road as the family pilots who came before him. Jordan was born with a number of disabilities due to having Nager Syndrome, a rare condition that mainly affects the development of the face, hands, and arms.
Even when the loss of his mother meant that he and his younger brother had to move in with their grandparents while he was still in high school, Jordan has persevered.
Now he has the opportunity to live the life he wrote of in his scholarship essay: “I dream of following in the footsteps of my elders. I dream of flying, ultimately as a commercial pilot…And maybe once the dream is realized, I can even help pass it on.”
Omar Duran was serving in a combat zone in 2011 when a bomb was detonated nearby. Turning away from the explosion, he hadn’t realized how close he was to the edge of a cliff, and in trying to save himself, he fell and was critically injured with multiple broken bones and a spinal cord injury.
After recovery and extensive rehab at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Duran met Able Flight pilot and advisory board member Sgt. Adam Kisielewski (U.S. Marine Corps-retired) who shared how Able Flight impacted his life when he became a pilot.
Now Duran will have the opportunity to take on a demanding new challenge.
In his scholarship essay he wrote that this challenge will be about “…experiencing new life lessons — determination, grit, and overcoming obstacles, despite my disabilities — that will stay with me for the rest of my life.”
Jacob Robinson of North Carolina grew up around airplanes, but not as the son of pilots. Jake’s mom was a flight attendant for more than 25 years, and he was often able to travel on standby.
But it wasn’t so much the traveling that fascinated him, it was the machine, the plane.
The other thing that drew him in was sports. He was a five sport athlete in high school hoping to play college football, when at age 17, an auto accident left Jake paralyzed.
And though he has had a busy and productive life, now that he has received an Able Flight Scholarship, Jake says he now has a new focus. And that focus is broader than just earning a pilot certificate.
“It will challenge me intellectually, physically and emotionally,” he says. “It will demand resilience, focus, and determination, qualities that transcend beyond the cockpit and resonate in every facet of life.”
Susan Baldwin of Arizona is destined to be known as the “mother” or “grandmother” of her training class this year, and she’s okay with that. It’s a reflection of her long career of service, first as a special agent for more than 20 years in the Army, then five years as a federal air marshal, followed by 15 years working for the Department of Homeland Security/TSA.
For some time she has been fascinated by flying, and that fascination has been focused on small aircraft. Susan’s retirement plans included becoming a pilot, but a trip to Mexico for a scuba diving trip (she is a Master Scuba Diver Trainer) ended in emergency surgery due to problems with her legs. When she came out of the anesthetic, she was told that both of her legs had been amputated.
Now, with her lifelong “can do” attitude, she’s about to begin a journey that can lead to another major achievement in a long list of achievements — she can become a pilot.
Tyler Pugeda of California has an impressive list of academic accomplishments, with degrees and certifications from Cal State, Johns Hopkins, and Rochester Institute of Technology.
Those achievements are all the more impressive when you learn that Tyler was born deaf.
He remembers how as a child his family sheltered him as a way of “protecting” him from their “perceived dangers” of the world outside his deafness, and how he worked to overcome that isolation through learning, including hours spent at the library studying about aircraft and space exploration.
When he learned of another person with hearing loss who successfully trained with an Able Flight Scholarship, Tyler decided to apply for a scholarship. Now, with a window of time available before he starts med school, Tyler will once again step beyond the expectations of others and challenge himself — this time to become a pilot.
Tim Riney, Jr. of Florida attended two years at a university before deciding that he really belonged in the military, so he enlisted in the Army. On the night of Feb. 6, 2015, while he was based at Fort Carson, Colorado, at the last minute Tim joined a training mission. A tragic accident changed the course of his planned career — and his life — forever.
The mission had just concluded and their vehicle was on the way back to the base when a wheel dropped off the edge of a cliff. Tim and the rest of the team were thrown around the inside of their transport as it plunged more than 300 feet down a hillside. An emergency evacuation by helicopter to a first-rate civilian trauma center started him down the road to recovery and rehabilitation.
The young soldier who had been trained to pilot unmanned aerial vehicles will now have the opportunity to control an aircraft once again, only this time he will do so from the pilot’s seat.
About Able Flight
Able Flight scholarships are made possible with the support of sponsors and donors including Tempest Aero Group, ForeFlight, Cirrus Aircraft, Muncie Aviation, Des Moines Flying Service, TBMOPA Foundation, the Chris & Melody Malachowsky Family Foundation, the O’Donnell Family Foundation, Bob Seidel, and Dr. Jeff Cain, Stites reports.
For more information on its scholarship program and on how you can support Able Flight, go to AbleFlight.org
