Only a few feet from chief pilot Greg Rush’s face, the airplane propeller began to whir. In seconds, the six-seat Piper PA-32-300 Cherokee Six was quaking at full speed.
Although Rush started the engine and went through the pre-flight routines, a seventh-grader, Adriene Sparks, 12, would ultimately be controlling the aircraft. The “Fly Day” experience at Tucson International Airport on Saturday was part of this month’s graduation for Wright Flight, a nonprofit program designed to motivate at-risk youth.
Wright Flight uses airplanes and flying experience as a reward for kids who stay out of trouble and remain drug free. Thousands of children have gone through the program, which has expanded to nine states and more than 25 chapters since being incorporated in Tucson in 1986.
Sparks, 12, was one of the program’s graduates taking advantage of the chance to fly the Piper on Saturday. As the small plane sped down the runway, Rush instructed him to pull back on the stick. The airplane took an abrupt, steep climb toward the sky; Rush helped Sparks level it out. After the climb, Sparks grew more confident in the co-pilot’s chair.
“It was easy,” he said about controlling the light aircraft, which weighs 3,400 pounds and can reach 174 mph and climb at 1,050 feet per minute. “It looked like it would be hard.”
Sparks practiced turns and brought the plane to a negative gravitational force, known among students as the rollercoaster effect. The student, who also learned how to dip and climb, said he had been on an airplane before, though this experience was very different from a typical jet flight.
“The neatest thing about kids flying is they’ve never done anything like this before,” said Rush, a veteran pilot who has been volunteering with the program for five years. “It’s very empowering.”
After completing nine lessons on the history of aviation, passing an exam, and fulfilling his promise to improve his grades and stay in school, out of trouble and off drugs, Sparks was rewarded with the 30-minute, hands-on flight experience.
Wright Flight’s director, Robin Stoddard, one of the program’s two paid employees, said he started the program in 1985 after noticing that kids got excited about airplanes. An Air Force fighter pilot for more than 30 years, Stoddard wanted to share his love of aviation, and to tie children’s enthusiasm into a motivational and educational program.
“The dream of flight is what we offer these kids,” he said, remembering a time when he flew with a blind girl and another when he went up with a girl who had no arms.
Stoddard recalled a boy who had been getting F’s in spelling class and having trouble with his English literacy. After going through the program, he studied to get all A’s and went on to win a spelling bee, Stoddard said.
Aside from watching the smile on each child’s face as he flies with them, Stoddard is also rewarded when he sees parents’ reaction, he said.
“The parents are nervous the whole time their kid is up in the air,” Stoddard said. “But when they get down, they swap nervousness for pride.”
A version of this article appeared in print on page 2 of the Tucson 2010 edition of The New York Times Student Journalism Institute.