That was the $70K question I attempted to answer during my local EAA chapter’s Young Eagles event. More on that in a minute after I plug a worthwhile cause. If you’ve never volunteered your aircraft and skills at one of these International Young Eagles Day events you’re missing out on a rewarding and humbling experience as kids experience flight for the first time in small aircraft. At this year’s event on a Saturday morning in June, our EAA Chapter 166 in Connecticut flew nearly 50 youngsters—that’s a lot of individual local-area flights spread out over a half-dozen aircraft in just a few hours. Since the program was launched in 1992, more than 44,000 volunteer pilots have given free aircraft rides to over 1.9 million kids. It’s always amazing to me the number of parents who bring their kids to these events and never knew the airport even existed—and many have never been up close to a small aircraft.
