For the 12th year in a row, La Porte Municipal Airport (KPPO) in Indiana hosted a week-long summer Aviation Camp for students entering sixth to 12th grades June 16-20, 2025.
“Aviation Camp is a chance for students to immerse themselves in the world of aviation and experience flight, learn basic flight maneuvers to fly an aircraft, discover career opportunities available to them, get hands on with aviation STEM activities, and more,” said Rachel Boulahanis, the airport’s operations manager.
Every student goes on a flight in a general aviation aircraft during camp. Those flights were made possible this year by local pilots Bruce Allen and Mitch Serber, Flight Saga, Open Door Aviation, Wings Aviation, and Region Flyers.
“The flights are an incredible experience for these students, as many of them had never flown in a plane before camp,” airport officials said. “Some of the pilots are also certified flight instructors, and allowed the students to take the controls for a moment during flight.”
Aviation Camp also includes several speakers and aviation STEM classes. Throughout the week, students are exposed to several aviation career options while hearing professionals speak about their careers and how they got where they are.
This year, the students got up close with an ag applicator drone, thanks to Nick Grott, owner of Patriot Aerial Solutions. Nick talked about the reliability and accuracy of applicator drones, as well as some of the careers that are available if students get their professional drone pilot license. The students were also able to see the drone fly.
The La Porte County Library’s mobile classroom has been coming to Aviation Camp since 2020, and this year Community Learning Librarian Julie Pitman organized a class for students to learn about how weight and shape affect an aircraft while building and testing complex paper airplanes with different papers and weights. One high school student threw their paper airplane an incredible 125 feet, according to airport officials.
The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) came out for a day and organized a class where students could learn about engineering structural designs that create strong bridges, and build their own bridges to try out designs of their own, then apply that to wing structures.
Civil Air Patrol members Bill Vendramin and Jason Bahus spent three days teaching the students principles of flying on flight simulators. The students were able to use the airport’s FAA-certified flight simulator as well as one of the Civil Air Patrol desktop simulators. Students learned the basics of how to taxi, takeoff, turn, land, and follow an instrument approach for landing.
Former fighter pilot and cargo pilot Bruce Allen spoke about his experiences in the military and the survival training he went through. Students learned how to use signaling mirrors, make paracord bracelets, and a few students had the opportunity to inflate aircraft lifejackets.
Each year the students are also taken off-site for field trips to explore even more careers in aviation.
This year the middle school students went to the Challenger Learning Center in Hammond, Indiana, to learn about what it’s like to be an astronaut, and participate in a mission control and space station simulation where they saved Earth from a comet.
The high school students went to South Bend International Airport and learned about many of the career opportunities at an airport, saw the snowplows, firetrucks and other emergency vehicles, and toured the Air Traffic Control Tower.
The camp experience was made possible this year by donations from the La Porte Aero Club, with the rest covered by the airport.
If you’d like to learn more about aviation camp or the airport’s other events, you can contact Operations Manager Rachel Boulahanis at [email protected] or 219-324-3393. Registration for camp typically opens up late March.
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