High school program creates pilots

While other high school juniors are sitting in a science or math class, Anastazia Marcy is at the airport, flying airplanes all by herself.

Anastazia is one of 20 students at Donald R. Kline Technical School in New York’s Columbia County, just south of Albany, who take part in the revitalized Questar III BOCES program at the school.

During the two-year program, the students earn their private pilot certificate and instrument rating — at no cost to their families.

“Students fly during school and can choose to go to the airport to fly for free outside of school hours or on weekends,” explains Radek Wyrzykowski, the program’s teacher and a well-known CFI who founded the IMC Club. “Participation in the program is the equivalent of being handed a $17,000 scholarship. In addition, participating students can earn several college credits in math, science, English, and career and financial management and go on to successful careers in aviation.”

Radek took over the program in 2022 and has already been honored with the “Champions of Change Award” by the New York State School Boards Association.

“This is a statewide recognition program that highlights the many school districts and BOCES programs and initiatives that are bringing positive, meaningful change to the students, communities, and districts of New York,” he explains.

BOCES — Board of Cooperative Educational Services — was founded in 1948 in New York state. One of 37 BOCES programs in the state that involves everything from automotive and the building trades to food services, Kline’s aviation program was founded in 2002, but has found new life with its new teacher.

“When I came on board, I decided I want this program to be the best in the country,” Radek says, adding “I want it to be a 21st Century program, because way too many times when we train pilots, it’s like we’re in the last century.”

The classroom includes two simulators, a full motion simulator and a desktop simulator.

“Every student has an iPad with a ForeFlight subscription available to them,” he adds. “And in the full motion simulator, they get an introduction to a G1000, even though they don’t fly G1000.”

What the kids are flying are Cessna 172s and Cessna 152s at Richmor Aviation at Columbia County Airport (1B1) in Hudson, New York.

How It Works

Through the BOCES program — basically a vocational technical program — students from different school districts can apply to a specific program, such as the aviation program.

Once accepted, they spend a few hours a day at the BOCES program, with the rest of the day at their home schools.

“We go to the aviation program in the morning and then we go back to our home schools in the afternoon for English and history,” explains Anastazia. “Sometimes during class we’ll go to the airport and fly. We also can book with our flight instructors after school and on the weekends.”

Everything from books to flight time — “even the exams” — is paid for by the school district, she says.

One of 10 juniors who started the program in the fall of 2023, Anastazia was the second in her group to solo on Dec. 8, 2023.

“I’m very close to getting my private pilot certificate,” she notes.

To get accepted into the program, students must apply, then go through an interview process, according to Radek.

With twice as many applications as spots available, officials narrow it down to 10 juniors each year. The other 10 students are seniors.

When the seniors graduate, they are often fast-tracked into college programs, many that have guaranteed job offers with accelerated curriculums, he says.

“When somebody comes in as a junior in high school, at age 21 or 22 they could have a job offer from an airline,” he notes.

Additionally, many of the program’s students graduate with up to 21 college credits.

“They are skipping an entire year because they’re going into college with a private certificate and instrument training,” he explains.

“My dream is that other schools in the nation would pick up this idea and run with it,” he says. “If we can do it here in New York state, we should be able to do it in any state.”

While other states don’t have the BOCES program, they do have vocational tech schools for high school students.

“I think that any vo-tech should be able to establish a program like this,” he says. “Because all it takes is state funding which, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not really that much. We’re talking about few hundred thousand dollars, compared to budgets that are in the millions. It’s something that should be very easily doable, especially since I consider aviation a strategic industry.”

He emphasizes that the program is not about pleasure flying — it’s about creating professional pilots.

The program is important for many reasons, he says.

One is the current pilot shortage.

“If we don’t have pilots, we don’t have airlines,” he says. “Plus, it’s not just the airlines. It’s medevac flights and Angel Flights and more.”

Another important point: The program makes dreams come true for kids who would otherwise have not been able to afford to learn to fly.

And, as anyone who has learned to fly knows, becoming a pilot helps shape a person’s character.

“Seeing the transition they go through is amazing,” Radek says. “They become adults from teenagers in just a few short weeks. My current junior class started in September and were flying by late October. A majority of them have already soloed.”

Anastazia agrees.

“I feel like I’ve matured a lot because when you’re flying solo, you are the pilot in command, so you have to make all the final decisions about that aircraft,” she says. “It’s a lot of responsibility, for sure. From the beginning of the course, Radek told us, ‘You’ve got to take responsibility for your actions. You got to know what you’re doing, and you have to be sure about what you’re doing. You can’t make a mistake when you’re flying a plane.'”

The 20 students work together as a team, sharing their successes and failures.

“I tell them that we are, as a team, helping the weakest ones,” he says. “I always compare this to climbing Mount Everest.”

“In fact, I have a picture of Mount Everest in the classroom with a trail going up, and I have points from our program defined there as we climb,” he continues. “And I tell them that the closer to the summit, the more difficult it’s going to be. But we always look back and we say, ‘Look how difficult something at the beginning was and now it’s pretty much obvious — like learning to understand weather reports.'”

Each of the students builds off the success of their classmates, Anastazia adds.

“We all fly, but we all fly individually, so it’s fun to compare where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing,” she says. “And we can also learn from each other, of course, which is really good because when you have 20 people that are all obsessed with flying, it’s always a good conversation.”