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Who we are and Why We Do This:
 Eagle students learn from the
ground up
By Alex Lyda
Union Tribune - April 5, 2003
You can almost touch
the budding egos amid the whining propellers and the smell of gasoline at
Gillespie Field: The kids are "hangar flying."
Using their hands
they re-enact the joys of looking down a 30-degree bank with nothing but
air between them and the ground.
These teens are
barely old enough to drive, let alone commandeer a Cessna, yet their
stories are already tinged with the rapturous quality of wartime aces
recounting their missions.
"I had a flight
with an instructor where we went to Las
Vegas," one recalled. "We had some huge
head winds. We planned the flight to be four hours, and four hours into it,
we were only halfway there! We got bounced around quite a bit."
These students are
getting a jump on aviation careers that will take them far beyond
Gillespie's humble runways. Many are focused on flying fighter jets or
jumbo airliners after college.
On a shoestring budget,
the Gillespie Field Eagles has been training student pilots from East County high schools since December
1998.
The cost is next to
nothing thanks to the generosity of community members and aviation
aficionados who have subsidized the program. Chief among them is retired
Air Force pilot Ben Cartwright, a gregarious white-haired man with two
incessantly ringing cell phones.
He doesn't talk much
about flying Mach 3 in the super-secret SR-71 Blackbird, or about flying
B-52 bombers. He is more excited by the kids.
"Sooner or later
they are going to break the light barrier," Cartwright said.
After a hangar fire
melted the Eagles' only training plane, Cartwright loaned them a Cessna and
has been actively involved in raising money.
A San
Diego businessman gave the Eagles some commercial property on Second Street
in El Cajon
to sell. The Eagles will then buy a plane and insurance.
Between phone calls,
Cartwright wondered aloud how he's going to find $200 by the weekend
"to pay ungodly insurance premiums."
When the insurance
companies realize how young the students are, they balk, he said.
"The insurance
company thinks that everybody ought to start out flying airplanes with
about 500 hours under their belt. The trouble is,
where do you get the 500 hours?"
The answer is the
Eagles program, which Cartwright founded on dreams.
Before flying
supersonic for the military, he was a young boy himself, washing planes at
Gillespie and absorbing as much aviation culture as he could, even learning
to fly before the government required a license.
Aviation is more
controlled now, he said, and more expensive.
The Eagles are a
holdout in an age when it costs at least $3,000 to get a private pilot's
license. Asked only to contribute $15 per flight, students can usually get
a license for $500, factoring in books and fees.
Students eventually
learn to solo before getting a license. Some can't wait to fly alone;
others are hesitant, even scared, Cartwright said.
Even he admitted he
was nervous about his first solo flight.
His instructor sat
next to him as they taxied toward the runway. When Cartwright made the
takeoff turn, the instructor jumped out.
Cartwright didn't
realize he was alone until it was too late to abort the takeoff. But after
his first landing he was so proud he took off again.
Although the students
tend to romanticize the pilot's life, even down to the swagger, their pure
fascination with flight with runs deeper.
"There's nothing
like being up there in the air, just flying around," said Charles
Barnes, 17, a senior at Granite
Hills High
School. "It's way better than driving.
You're just out there and you're free and you're looking down, you're above
everything. You can see everything. It's great."
Barnes plans to
become a fighter pilot for the Marines.
Walter Szampruch, a 40-year-old who works on fighters as a
mechanic for the Navy, volunteers his time repairing and maintaining the
Cessna. He says the program fosters confidence.
 Erick Espiritu, a West Hills
High junior, agreed. "After the first touch-and-go that I did, I felt
confident," he beamed.
Only 16 and still
growing, Espiritu sits on a folded tarp so he can see out the cockpit.
Once he gets his
license, he joins a special club.
"Aviation is
just a fraternity," said Vince Ammann,
president of the Eagles. "Once you get your private pilot's license,
you've got a group of people you can relate with like none other."
Across the tarmac a
man struggled to push his plane into a parking spot. Szampruch
ran to help. They shook hands and talked for the first time.
Cartwright smiled, then looked longingly at the students.
"These kids are
going to get to go places that I'll never get to go," he said.
"So my hope is, if I help them get there, a little bit of me goes with
them. Not much, but a little bit."
Used with permission from
the San Diego Union Tribune www.signonsandiego.com
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