After a short holiday break, DreamLaunch is officially back on the road.
Jamail Larkins has reached nearly 68,000 students through the DreamLaunch tour since its inception in 2004, laying out a clear roadmap for turning aviation goals into reality. Jamail was quite busy in 2025, hosting DreamLaunch presentations across the country.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better way to start the year than Aviation Day at Orlando-Sanford International Airport (KSFB) in Florida,” Jamail says.
“Most DreamLaunch stops focus on students who are immediately ready to enter the workforce, with a key focus on high school, technical school students, and college programs,” he explains, adding that his focus is to “help them see aviation not just as flying airplanes, but as an entire ecosystem of careers. From mechanics and dispatchers to airport ops, insurance, finance, engineering, and even artists designing paint schemes — it takes a whole village to keep aviation moving. And since we are one year closer to the estimated 83% of today’s mechanics expected to retire by 2035, the industry needs every aviation curious person we can find.”
But the launch event of 2026 had a slightly different mission, he says. Its goal was to “create that young, wide-eyed, and pure magic that happens when someone sees aviation up close and personal for the first time.”
“So when Orlando-Sanford Airport asked me to help kick off its Aviation Career Day, I couldn’t say no. They do it right. Nearly 5,000 people showed up for what felt like an all-access airport experience. Families walking the ramp. Kids climbing around aircraft displays. Local schools, CAP squadrons, flight programs, and aviation groups lined up across the hangar. And thanks to the local EAA chapter, Young Eagles flights were launching all day, giving kids their very first airplane ride.”
Jamail adds that if you’ve never watched a kid step out of a small airplane after their first flight, grinning ear-to-ear like they just discovered a superpower, you’re missing out.
“That energy is contagious — and probably the reason why 50,000 pilots have volunteered with EAA’s Young Eagles Program,” he says. “This was a great way to start off 26 cities that we’ll be visiting in 2026, all with the same mission.”
While the younger crowd soaked up the excitement, we also had a strong group of high school and college students who were there with a more practical question: “How do I actually pay for this?”
And, that’s where AviationStart comes in, according to Jamail.
“We spent the day walking students and families through the scholarship database and showing them just how much funding is out there — more than $20 million and counting,” he says.
Jamail says one moment during the event “really stuck” with him.
“I was talking with a freshman from Florida Tech on the professional pilot track. I gave him my usual advice: Apply for everything that you’re eligible for — not just the scholarships you think you fit. Before he could answer, his mom jumped in and said, ‘that’s exactly what he did. He won a big scholarship from a local women’s aviation club.’ It was literally music to my ears!”
A lot of students don’t realize organizations like Women in Aviation, the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals (OBAP), Latino Professionals in Aerospace (LPA), the NGPA, and others are incredibly inclusive. You don’t have to “fit a mold” — if you support their mission, you likely qualify to apply, Jamail advises. And those smaller groups often have less competition and real dollars available.
“By the end of the event, we’d talked with hundreds of families, connected students to scholarships, and watched thousands of people experience aviation up close — many for the very first time,” he says, adding, “not a bad way to start 2026.”
“If Orlando is any indication, this year’s DreamLaunch Tour is going to be a fun one,” he concludes.
If you know anyone interested in aviation, Jamail asks you to share the 2026 DreamLaunch Schedule.
Catch up on all the Where’s Jamail? posts here.
Leave a Reply