EAA Chapter 25

The month of May has been the best Young Eagles month we’ve had that I can remember. We first flew 33 kids on the regular YE 3rd Saturday, then on the 29th at Red Wing, we set a Chapter 25 record for number of Young Eagles flow at one event.

Thanks to Bill Brown’s communications and organizing, we were invited to fly Young Eagles at the Red Wing Veterans’ Day event at KRGK. Bill’s arrangements with the folks there provided for a shade canopy as well as chairs and tables for our registration area. With six pilots (Jon Cumpton, John Schmidt, Bob Foster, Paul Pankratz, Mike Schoen, and Joel Ludwigson) plus a good ground crew (Bill Brown, Kris Olson, Ron , Paul Brown, Dave Olson, Bob Dunst, and myself) we managed to get rides for 93 kids in one day! The responses from the kids were all positive, and the pilots did a wonderful job of acquainting them with their airplanes and the processes of flying from RGK. The folks that put this event on have also invited us back next year to do it again.

I’m sure our YE numbers for this year will be the highest I’ve seen since I started working with Young Eagles following Mike Dolan’s ten year experience of coordinating the process. We also have a Boy Scout troop scheduled for the July YE event.