LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Southern Indiana's Civil Air Patrol is back in the air after the COVID-19 pandemic put a pause on its cadet training program for a couple of months.
Teen cadets learned how to fly above Clark Regional Airport on Saturday. A pair of cadets team up with a pilot, who handles takeoff and landing. The controls are then turned over to the cadet to fly across Kentuckiana.
"It truly is really fun to just start flying the plane," said 16-year-old cadet Rebecca Foster, who on Saturday finished her second flight. "You're in control, and the pilot doesn't have anything else to do with it. It's just you.
"This is a career that I've been interested in for a while now," Foster added. "I want to go into the Air Force and join their piloting program."
Cadet Mikayla Colmenares, 15, said she also hopes to enlist.
"It was amazing," she said after the flight. "It was my first time (flying a plane)."
Southern Indiana's Civil Air Patrol is back in the air after the COVID-19 pandemic put a pause on its cadet training program for a couple of months.
The program can be just as rewarding for the pilots who offer the free lessons.
"They did amazingly well," pilot Thomas Elam said. "To introduce young people to aviation at this age is a thrill. I just get cold chills thinking about it. ... I was never in the Air Force, never in the Army, and here's a chance to serve my country and do some good."
The experience is especially meaningful for veterans who volunteer with the program.
"I'm a Cold War veteran, so this gives me a chance to have a use in life," said Lt. Christopher Fowler, who trains cadets on flight safety measures. "This gives me a mission that I can actually fulfill, and that is to bring the next generation up to be good citizens."
Copyright 2020 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.
