By Scott Thompson, President, EAA Chapter 1541
Way back sometime in 2018, I had the pleasure of participating in a Young Eagles rally held by our chapter, EAA Chapter 1541, at the Lincoln Regional Airport in Lincoln, California. During that rally, I flew a young lady named Amy Whelan in my RV-8, one of several kids I flew that day.
Well, an enthusiastic Amy, EAA 1283566, went on to become deeply involved in aviation and our chapter, and in July 2019 our chapter sponsored her attendance at the EAA Air Academy in Oshkosh. Later that fall, she was awarded the Ray Aviation Scholarship under our chapter’s administration, and she earned her private pilot certificate the following year. That led to further training at Embry-Riddle and these days she is a well-qualified CFII working from the Mach 5 Aviation flight school at the Auburn Municipal Airport (KAUN) in the Sierra foothills northeast of Sacramento.
When our chapter’s current Ray Aviation scholar, Aria Ramey, was looking for a good flight instructor this past spring, we put two and two together, and now Aria, EAA 1641999, is in the midst of her flight training with Amy as her CFI. Aria is a 17-year-old senior attending Whitney High School in Rocklin, California, with aspirations that take her to the Air Force Academy and then to her dream profession — to be a USAF KC-135 tanker pilot.
Our chapter has a good number of successful Ray Aviation scholars, so we were especially pleased to see Amy passing on her experience, both life-wise and aviation-wise, to Aria. Amy says they have similar backgrounds. Neither of their families were initially very interested in aviation, at least not until they received their scholarships, so they both came to aviation without a lot of knowledge or background.
Amy is happy to give back to someone in the same position she was in just a few years ago. But they both now have pretty specific career goals: Amy is on short final to land a job as a regional airline pilot, moving someday to the majors, and Aria is in the process of seeking an appointment to the Air Force Academy. Aria considers Amy to be her “aviation big sister.”
Our chapter watches with great interest and a good measure of involvement as these two young ladies grow into professional pilots with an obvious enthusiasm for all things aviation.