The Air Up There
Flight camp lifts attendees out of the classroom and into the sky
By Celeste M. Brooks
Photos: Misti Walters
Set on a hill in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, with mountain views to both the east and the west, sits Randolph-Macon Academy (R-MA), a college-prep boarding school for students in grades 6 to 12. The high school students (grades 9 through 12) learn leadership skills through Air Force Junior ROTC. The academy also provides them with a unique opportunity—the chance to fly in a powered aircraft.
The academy owns two Cessna 172 aircraft and employs two, full-time flight instructors, each with over 5,000 hours of flight experience, supplemented with additional personnel specializing in drone aircraft and flight lessons as needed. The aircraft are housed at a hangar located at Front Royal/Warren County Airport, located about six miles from the campus. The flight program was started in 1985 as part of the extracurricular opportunities offered during the regular school year. Not long after, the R-MA staff decided to offer a summer flight camp in which students could work towards their first solo flight. This was an ambitious goal, as a typical student pilot will log between 15 and 25 hours of flight time before soloing.
A Broader Reach
Virginia weather being a bit fickle in the summertime, the program administrators found it difficult to provide the flight experience needed for that first flight. The other variable was how fast individual students progressed. Safety always comes first, and a student will not be allowed to fly solo until the camp is positive he or she is ready for the challenge. In 2017, Flight Instructor Ryan Koch considered these facts, along with the growth of remote piloting, and concluded the summer flight camp needed to expand in a different way.
Beginning in the summer of 2018, Koch encouraged the camp to encompass a broader focus that was more career-oriented. “The big thing is to expose the students to as many areas of aviation as possible, and the careers within those different areas,” he says. The flight camp runs on the same schedule as the R-MA summer school, in which students can take one new course for high school credit or repeat two courses. This creates a rather unique challenge in the world of summer camps, as the two flight instructors have to develop a wide variety of activities to engage students for four full weeks. Of course, there is the unique opportunity to give campers a one-of-a-kind, in-depth exposure to all things related to flight.
Tapping Into Resources
Fortunately, Koch is a flight instructor with the mind and creativity of a full-time teacher, and he has created a summer camp full of activities, flying, guest speakers, and field trips. With 135 acres that include wide-open athletic fields, he was able to arrange for hot air balloons and helicopters to visit the campus. He has also brought in special guest speakers, such as Federal Aviation Administration inspectors, designated pilot examiners, and airline pilots.
The camp excursions do not end at the local airport. Campers have visited U.S. Customs & Border Protection to learn about law-enforcement aviation and air traffic-control towers at regional airports. Campers also traveled to the Udvar Hazy Air & Space Museum to gain context of the historical background of what they’re learning.
For those who might consider starting their own flight camp, having contacts at different airports is invaluable. While R-MA has a strong relationship with the local airport, it is a small venue located in a rural area, and to build the program, Koch needed connections at larger airports. “It’s been really effective with [fellow flight instructor] Geoff Peterson having an established business at the Manassas Airport, which has all these places we can visit,” he says. “Some of our connections are people we know from other areas and expos.” Having had a flight program for almost 35 years helps as well; the helicopter that visits is flown by an R-MA alumnus, and the hot air balloon is owned by an R-MA parent. Another parent provided the contacts for the group to visit Mesa Airlines at Dulles Airport.
Hit And Miss
In redesigning the camp structure, Koch’s biggest challenge was deciding how to keep up to eight teenagers engaged for a full eight hours every day before the residential staff would take over in the evenings. One project he thought would work well was students building remote-controlled airplanes from kits. Koch expected they could spend a half-day building them and then flying them, but the campers wanted to be creative with the design. Without following exact directions, Koch says, “Some students just made a big blob of foam board and hot glue, which didn’t fly.” This could be remedied by having more oversight of the project for the first few days to ensure that students know what is expected and can develop the skills to be successful.
The new drone option was more successful. The flexibility of the camp allowed two students to focus on that aspect with Peterson. At the end of their four-week stay, students successfully took the airman knowledge test to become remote pilots! But, as exciting as that was, nothing matches soaring through the sky, and without a doubt, every camper’s favorite part of the summer is actually flying in the airplane. They have ample opportunities to do so, even if they’re not the ones piloting, because there are usually two campers and one instructor in each Cessna 172 (the aircraft can seat up to four people). Depending on the number of campers each year, the amount of flight time has ranged from six to 20 hours per person.
“Students really like to do the longer cross-country trips,” Koch says. “If we do a longer cross-country trip, the campers are sitting in ground school for longer periods because we’re taking a group of students for an entire day instead of just a half-day. So that was a challenge, too. How do you keep the students engaged who are not on those trips? Because they love it when they’re flying the whole day and they’re flying to the beach, but then they have to be in ground school for three days before or after that.”
Knowing that most camps are not going to have easy access to an airport as R-MA has, Koch has several suggestions for those interested in offering a flight camp. “Go to a small airport near you and start making connections would be the first step,” he says. “The aviation community is fairly small and almost always helpful. Schools could partner with local flight schools to provide the flight-training aspect for them. My second suggestion is to not underestimate the power of drones. A lot of the ground-school material you need to obtain your private pilot certification is also covered for obtaining a remote-pilot certification, so it serves a dual purpose. And besides the fact that the career opportunities for drone pilots are growing exponentially every day, almost every student gets a kick out of flying drones. Make it hands-on and make it fun!”
For more information about the R-MA flight camp, visit RMA.edu/summer-programs-flight-camp, or email Koch at rkoch@rma.edu.
Celeste M. Brooks is the Director of Communications at Randolph-Macon Academy in Virginia. Reach her at cbrooks@rma.edu.