AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2014 - 60

"I wanted uniforms that could be used without the kids going
broke buying it, so I went with a military surplus flight suit
and yellow ascot. Treat them like pilots, dress them like pilots,
and they become pilots."
THE AIRCRAFT. White searched for a
trainer, and found an FBO willing to part
with a Cessna 150 that no one would rent,
mostly because it was painted pale blue.
He went out to meet it landing at Morris
County Airport, and it taxied in with a 172
that the FBO threw in for good measure.
Being ex-military, White wanted to
instill teamwork and discipline in his
kids, to teach them how to listen and
work together, to teach them courtesy
and respect. So first on the list was closeorder drill. "And I wanted uniforms that
could be used without the kids going
broke buying it, so I went with a military
surplus flight suit and yellow ascot," he
says. "Treat them like pilots, dress them
like pilots, and they become pilots. And
with the neck scarf the drill team really
looked good."
For the first couple of decades Eagle
Flight met Thursday evenings in the church
basement. Then 14 years ago the city
offered White the abandoned Firehouse
Number 4-which, like the rest of East
Orange, needed a lot of work. The kids
refurbished it, and every Thursday evening they drill on the ground floor where
fire trucks used to park. The new kids,
some as young as 11, barely know left from
right, but in a couple of years they're teaching the newbies. Ground school classes are
held on the upper floors. They also take
courses in public speaking, math, English,

60 | AOPA PILOT September 2014

writing, and life skills. On the weekends the
older students schedule lessons with flight
instructor Steve Lind, the only staffer of
four who receives a salary. A former Army
Ranger and then a pilot for WCBS, Lind had
logged some 8,000 hours reporting traffic
above New York City when, in 2000, his
buddy White approached him to become
chief flight instructor.
"Ninety-seven percent of the students are people of color," Lind says.
"Their family life is mostly matriarchal.
It took me a while to figure out that I'm
the father figure." At last count, five of his
students have graduated from various military academies, and this year one is going
to the United States Military Academy at
West Point.
"It's not easy to train them, because
kids nowadays have video games in front
of them and their fingers going at the
speed of light," he explains. "They have
attention spans of two or three seconds.
The thing we really do is not so much
teach them how to fly. We teach them how
to learn, to think, how to problem-solve,
assess risk, and display judgment."
Today Eagle Flight students fly from
Essex County Airport (CDW) in Caldwell,
New Jersey. They have a donated Cessna
150, and a Cessna 172 that the group purchased. They are not using simulators but
have started to explore how they can be
brought into the program.

PASSING THE TORCH. In 2013, after nearly
300 kids had graduated, White decided it
was time to hang up the yellow ascot, kick
back in the garage, and build balsa-wood
models. "I didn't want them to kick me out,
and didn't want to be kicked off the mountain," he says. "I knew when it was time to
quit." He choose his successor, a former
Eagle Flight Squadron member named
Michael Chisolm, who started in 1997.
"About nine months in the program
I went for my first flight when I was
14, 15, and I thought, This is nice, I like
this," Chisolm says. He went on to finish
high school, got his bachelor's at Daniel
Webster College in New Hampshire, and
his master's at Rutgers University. In
the late 1990s he got his private certificate, but decided that he didn't want to
fly professionally and went into airport
management, now working for the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey
at La Guardia Airport.
Why did White chose him? "I'm definitely not a military man," Chisolm says.
"I think it's a combination of things. I'm
alumni of the program so I understand
what the students are going through and
dealing with, I've been involved a lot in a
volunteer capacity helping with the program or in the classroom, and there's my
aviation-management background."
Since he's taken over, he says the most
difficult part is making sure that Eagle

PATCHES ON THE UNIFORMS and the yellow ascot give the military surplus flight suits flair
(above left). Rev. White interviews a hopeful candidate for the Eagle Flight Squadron
program (above right). In his second floor office in the former firehouse, White grills
prospects on their grades, enthusiasm for the program, and commitment to participation. Ikna Shillingford is a high school senior who plans to be an aeronautical engineer
(right). She soloed this summer.

AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2014

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