Ace Kehoe, EAA 1537419, is known as the “aviation kid” at his Florida high school, and it’s a title he’s fully embracing! At just 16 years old, Ace is forming an aero club to bring aviation education to local youths just like him.
Ace grew up flying with his dad when he was younger, but never thought much about the possibilities of aviation. Though when his dad picked flying back up a couple years ago and asked him to join him on a flight, Ace thought a little more about it. “I was just so awed; I didn’t know how any of the stuff in the airplane works. … It was all new to me and I had no idea about anything. It’s so different from the way I am now because I kept my hands on me; I didn’t want to touch anything for fear I would break something. … Whereas now when I get in an airplane, I’m checking everything out. … I got interested by that.”
He was hooked, but as we all know, flight training is expensive. To make sure Ace was serious about flying, his parents offered to pay for flight training on the condition he could pass his written exam with a 90 or better. Ace enrolled in an online ground school and passed his written exam just a few months later with a score of 96.
In the beginning of his junior year, Ace started flight training at the Florida Flight Training Center (FFTC) located at the Venice Municipal Airport (KVNC), but he was hungry for more. He asked FFTC about any job opportunities, and he was hired as a dispatcher for a few nights after school. “That on top of flight training probably grew my knowledge of aviation exponentially. … I’m also learning more about flight management, operations, maintenance, what’s required to keep things in check, scheduling, and the rules required.”
After a year of working as a dispatcher, he asked FFTC about apprenticeship opportunities at their sister company, Florida Flight Maintenance, and has already logged more than 400 apprentice hours towards his A&P certification. He will be taking his private pilot checkride on his 17th birthday in November and plans to major in aerospace engineering when he goes to college next year.
Ace explained that because of his dispatching job, he became known as the “aviation kid” at his high school. “It’s funny, I was definitely not that two years before, but in my junior year I guess I talked about it enough that people recognized that I was around airplanes a lot, so I had some kids asking me about how to start flight training, what it was like, can you just go fly an airplane like learning to drive a car?”
Ace brought this interest to FFTC and discussed different options to bring in more local youths. The FFTC generously offered to reduce their in-person ground school rate from $800 to just $100 to help eliminate financial barriers for Ace’s classmates, and if the students could pass their written exam with a score of 85 or higher, that $100 would be applied to a flight lesson. In the first month, they already had a successful trial with three students.
Seeing Ace’s progress, his manager at FFTC told Ace about the EAA Ray Aviation Scholarship program that provides up to $11,000 to youths pursuing flight training. Ace wasn’t previously familiar with EAA, so he reached out to EAA Chapter 1285, also located at KVNC, and chapter president David Consbruck, EAA Lifetime 633043, invited him to their next meeting. David also invited Jamie Beckett, EAA Lifetime 854387, a high school liaison for AOPA, to speak about the value of youth clubs.
After the chapter meeting, David and Jamie took time to sit down with Ace and they helped him figure out the next steps and what paperwork was needed to make his aero club official. EAA Chapter 1285 even provided Ace with $500 to pay for starting and filing fees to become a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization and to allow for tax-deductible donations. Ace expects all state and federal paperwork to be completed in the next couple months.
“I have a small group, I say small, but it’s grown actually… About 10 to 15 kids, and parents come along too because they want to sit and learn as well,” Ace explained, “[FFTC] has been generous enough to let us meet at the flight school. … We try to have meetings once a month right now.” So far, the growing club has hosted meetings on topics such as aviation safety, ground school, air speeds, and will be hosting a meeting about maintenance this month.
“The aero club’s goals are really just to promote aviation in youth to foster learning and education in aviation and also the possible careers… We’re just trying to expand out our reach and try to reach as many kids as possible in the local community.”
Ace’s advice for youths looking to start an aviation club? “Take the motivation you have when you start and keep it,” Ace said, “You got to keep that motivation, keep working, and see your goal and work towards it. I’ve had experience with that, even with this club, where I thought it may not have worked, but I kept working at it and here we are.”
Ace is especially grateful and extends his thanks to the Florida Flight Training Center and Florida Flight Maintenance for “giving me the opportunities and giving back to the aviation community here in Venice. I really couldn’t have done it without them.”
When we see an entire aviation community, like that at KVNC, come together to support a next-generation aviator, we can feel confident that the future of aviation is in good hands.