I've been a Young Eagle Coordinator for my EAA chapter for 10+ years, and a Flight Leader (Young Eagles pilot) since 1994. I'll hit the 500-kids flown mark this summer. This is a highly rewarding program. The obvious goal is to get the youngsters interested in aviation as a career or hobby, or spark their interest in learning anything else.
But, there are side benefits, too.
1) Even though the flights are fairly routine from one to the next (deliberately), it makes me feel like I'm doing something important when I fly, not just turning fuel into noise.
2) In the U.S. tax code, it's treated as a charitable activity generating a tax deduction, so each hour really costs about 70% of typical.
3) There are perks for the pilots as a thank-you, like a cap at 50 kids flown, a shirt at 100 (it's the most expensive shirt I own!), a jacket at 300, etc.
Now, for the IMPORTANT reasons.
4) You get a shot at influencing a young person in a positive way, often planting a seed about what they can accomplish in life. Right now, there are two young men at university that I've given several flights to that are studying for professional pilot careers. There is a 16-year-old girl who I first flew at 12, and she's now got over 20 hours toward a PPL. (That gives me a great feeling.) I flew her father, too, and the bug bit him. He's become a PPL.
5) It bring families, particularly the parents, to the airport, when they would not have likely ever come to the airport for another reason. They get to see that folks in general aviation are not fatcats, but just average people who happen to be passionate about flight. They also see that we're safe, thinking people, not daredevils or idiots, as Hollywood usually portrays us. This opportunity to educate the average public is a huge thing. This goes a long way toward improving the image of G.A.
6) The parents (read: taxpayers) see a constructive activity at the airport. Too many people here think of airports as a gross waste and misuse of land and money. This actually helped us recently when there was a vote in the city that would have badly hurt our airport. (The ultimate goal of some land developers was to close the airport so they could get their grubby paws on the land.) Fortunately, the voting public saw that the proposal was stupid, and rejected it. We all think that the Young Eagles flights helped at least a little in swaying the opinions of the voters.
7) By getting more people involved in aviation, we help ourselves to sustain it. Most purchased things will go down in cost as the volume sold goes up. If more people fly, there's more incentive for airframe and avionics builders to keep improving their products, more reason for the oil refiners to continue to produce avgas, etc.
If you haven't flown in the Young Eagles Program, get started! We have as much fun as the kids do. Your name and the name of the kids goes into the World's Largest Logbook, maintained in Oshkosh. Currently, there have been 1.38 million kids flown.
See the website for more info at youngeagles.com.
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