Cadet Lt. Col. Arial Quick, one of the cadets who proposed the Rotary Education
School, salutes during morning formation at RES. (Staff Sgt. Deyton Talley Photo)
a lot about rockets, airplanes, balloons, and spaceflight, but never about verti- cal aviation. I want to emphasize that it’s the
cadets who are craving this input. They’re asking to see what options are out there in vertical aviation. RES filled a need that we didn’t know existed. It took us a solid year to put the
curriculum together. I wrote it, for the most part, and the cadet staff helped coordinate everything. Cadets had to be at least 16 years
old and, at minimum, a staff sergeant to participate in the RES. Having progressed through the ranks up to at least what we consider a noncommis- sioned officer grade shows they have some maturity.
What challenges did you face in organizing the RES? CAP offers cadet special activities on a variety of topics, including fixed-wing aircraft and gliders. Nothing has ever been done with rotary wing simply because CAP doesn’t have helicop- ters. They’re expensive and complex to operate, and not enough people can fly them. We thought, “We can find a way around this. We don’t have to own the aircraft, and we can do a lot in the classroom.” While the cadets had a really good
concept, we needed to be realistic. We started by asking ourselves, what’s our goal? The goal wasn’t to get cadets ready for an FAA written test. We simply can’t do that in five days, but we can teach them about helicopter aerodynamics and the principles of helicopter flight and introduce them to the industry.
In addition to ground school, what did the cadets cover in the classroom? We discussed helicopter missions, from law enforcement and EMS to pipeline patrol and utility. A sensor operator discussed the science behind thermal imaging, which is often used in pipeline patrols. A paramedic taught a block on aeromedical issues as they relate to pilot performance. Two CAP members who work for Bell taught lessons related to maintenance and engineering. A US Marine Corps Cobra pilot at
Camp Pendleton in California joined by Zoom. She talked about her pathway through college, Officer Candidate School, and flight school. It showed the cadets that they have a route to become a pilot other than the military service academies.
Did every cadet get to fly a helicopter? We tried to get every cadet a 30-min- ute hands-on discovery flight, but it was just too costly. We were trying to keep it budget-friendly for parents. So we made the program competitive,
with the top five academically achiev- ing cadets earning the right to take a discovery flight in which they got to manipulate the controls of a Robinson R44. The other 15 cadets flew for about
30 minutes in a Bell 407 in groups of four or five at a time. About 90% of the cadets had never
been in a helicopter before. They just couldn’t stop smiling. The Jeff Pino Foundation was clutch for us to make that happen.
How did VAI and the Jeff Pino Foundation get involved? Last year, at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, a couple of cadets asked Greg Brown [VAI’s director of education and train- ing services], if VAI would be able to provide some guidance. That led Greg to join our planning meetings via Zoom. When he learned we needed financial support, Greg put us in touch with the Jeff Pino Foundation. They were amazing. We needed outside support to be
able to pull this off. We had little to no budget, and having the founda- tion come in and fund the Bell 407
SEP 2024 POWER UP 23
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