Youth take wing with Young Eagles

By Dan Hilborn
Published Apr. 22, 2006


A program that offers a free airplane ride and an on-ground flight lesson to anyone aged eight to 17 years old is being sponsored by several veteran pilots from Burnaby.

Local author and pilot Harry Pride has joined forces with Al and Barbara Fielder of the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association to sponsor a Young Eagles program at the Delta Airpark this spring.

"We do it for the love of flying," Al Fielder told the Burnaby NOW recently. "A lot of pilots today are baby boomers, and they are retiring and won't be replaced if we don't keep the young people involved."

The Young Eagles program, sponsored by the U.S.-based Experimental Aircraft Association in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, was started in 1992 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first powered airplane flight, with the intention of giving one million children a free ride in an airplane and flight lesson. Since its inception, more than 1.2 million children have participated and dozens more sign up every month.

The Fielders said they volunteer their time to help register the kids and teach the ground school lesson out of their love for children and flying.

"We get the occasional kid who backs out, but all of them, when they get out of the plane, they run to their parents shouting, 'Mom, Mom. I flew the airplane,'" he said.

Al Fielder first fell in love with airplanes when he was just a four-year-old lad and a biplane flew over his mother's farm in Saskatchewan. Always amazed by those flying machines, Fielder finally enrolled in flight school in 1953, and since then, he's never kept both feet on the ground for any length of time.

While he currently flies a home-built ultralight, he used to belong to an airplane shareholder's club that had access to three different craft.

The Fielders became involved in the Young Eagles program after the couple helped to revive one of the association's oldest chapters in the Lower Mainland, a group called Flight Five that was based in Kitsilano. After enlisting 28 new members for the group and hosting a few pancake breakfasts, the fliers were looking for some way to give back to the community and agreed the Young Eagles fit the bill perfectly.

In its first year, the program gave free airplane rides to 45 kids. Since then, more than 700 young people from across the Lower Mainland have participated. Participants also receive a formal certificate of achievement signed by Hollywood actor Harrison Ford, the honorary chair of the program.

But taking part requires a little bit of commitment on the part of the benefiting child and their family. Participants must register in advance with the signed consent of their parent or guardian. Registration takes place between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 29 at the Delta Airpark. Once registered, participants will be given a time on May 6 when they can return for their on-ground flying lesson and their short 15 to 20 minute flight around the Lower Mainland.

The Delta Airpark is located at the foot of 104th Street, off Hornby Drive in South Delta, about two kilometres east of the larger Boundary Bay Airport. For more information on the Young Eagles, contact the Fielders at 604-540-6435.