Dylan Brock signed up for the air cadets program a week ago.
He’s already logged his first flight.
“For the first time it was pretty nerve-wracking, but once I got up in the air it was fun seeing all the trees so small, when you’re down here they’re so big,” Brock said.
“I got to control the plane, I got to do some side turns, some half rolls. It was very different from every other day.”
The 12-year-old is one of about 70 air cadets in the region taking to the air in Timmins as part of Operation Aurora this weekend.
Today, about 35 cadets from Timmins, Iroquois Falls and Kirkland Lake were strapped into a Bellanca Scout aircraft to learn the ropes from experienced pilots. Flights are also taking off tomorrow.
The stop is part of a Northern Ontario tour to bring flying closer to the communities that have air cadet programs, explained Capt. Nicole McKay.
“We’re making sure that we have these cadets experience the thrill of flight,” she said. “It’s part of their mandatory training program for all cadets that they have to be in an aircraft at least once a year. That’s to have them take their theoretical learning from the classroom into a practical, hands-on setting.”
Not everybody in the air cadet program becomes a pilot, explained McKay.
“But through some of the air activities — that might be aircraft maintenance, airport operations, it could be flying, we also do sports and marksmanship and lots of other streams as well — the goal is that they’re going to learn leadership, good citizenship and heathy living,” she said.
Normally cadets travel to get this kind of experience.
By visiting the communities, she said they can potentially inspire other people to get involved. That could be by new cadets signing up, or pilots and other adult leaders
Most of the pilots in the air today are members of the Canadian Armed Forces reserves.
“They all have other jobs, they all come from different industries, we’ve got engineers, we’ve got people who are still in school,” she said. “And this is what they do in their spare time.”
2nd Lt. James Balasch is one of the pilots sharing the experience with area youth.
He said the flights are usually last about 10 to 15 minutes. At the start, he said they’re introduced to the three main moves, then the cadets get to take over and try flying for themselves.
“You get anything from ‘I like this’ to mild screaming. Usually they enjoy it a lot,” he said.
The longer they’re at the control, the more confident they get.
“That’s probably the biggest thing you’ll notice when they come out of these flights, is they go ‘oh, this is something that I can actually do’,” he said.
Confidence is the biggest thing that Balasch has gained from the program.
“I’ve gotten the aviation experience, I’ve gotten to do tons of things, teach people how to fly, but the biggest thing you notice is just confidence you can use in other areas of life,” he said.
Learning to love flying early can also lead to a career.
“The aviation industry right now is really in need of pilots. So just the fact that there’s program that can take people from backgrounds who wouldn’t necessarily have the means to afford flight training, especially this early on, can give them this flight experience early and then get them ready to move on to an aviation career, whether that be a pilot or air traffic controller,” he said.
