Wathen Center Educates for the Future
By David Gustafson
The Flabob Airport Preparatory Academy hosts middle and high school students.Recognizing that a million professional pilots and A&P mechanics are going to be needed over the next 20 years, the Wathen Center, which is headquartered at historic Flabob Airport in Riverside, Calif. has initiated planning to train young men and women for those professions. The Center already has a successful middle and high school program on its grounds and is moving rapidly to establish the A&P program, while upgrading its flight training operations.
The charter school, which is expected to transition to a Big Picture charter soon, will begin phasing in an extensive aviation-based curriculum in 2013. Seniors and juniors in the school will be able to begin working on their A&P license while finishing up their high school requirements. In the meantime, students at the Flabob Airport Preparatory Academy have a wide range of extra-curricular activities they can pursue. Many of them become involved in one of the restoration projects at the airport. Currently, students are volunteering their time on Saturdays to bring a Stinson 108 and a Stits Playboy back to flightline status. Previously, they restored an Aeronca Chief and two of them flew it to AirVenture. An active group of juniors and seniors are participating in “The Aviators,” a group raising funds to attend AirVenture 2012.
By working on the restoration projects, students earn credits toward flying lessons. Already 24 students have earned their private pilot licenses and some of those have gone on to study at a military academy, the University of North Dakota or Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. At some point in the future, the Wathen Center hopes to upgrade their flight training operations to support the projected need for professional and military pilots. By the time it’s in place the airlines are expected to be in dire need of new pilots.
The A&P program is already in the advanced planning stage, with expectations of bringing it online next year. The program will accommodate veterans and students from the high school. Veterans will be able to complete studies for the A&P certificate in 11 months, or even less with distance learning of classroom subjects. Prospects for employment after completing the program are excellent, because of forecast aviation needs and also because many companies who have no affiliation with aviation want an A&P because of the extensive knowledge they possess when they graduate. For example, Disneyland only hires A&P mechanics to work on rides in their parks. The program at Flabob will utilize remote learning activity, allowing military personnel to begin studies before they actually arrive on campus. Most soldiers, who work as mechanics in the military, will be able to “test out” of some of the 44 subjects they are expected to master before receiving their license.
In addition to the three key programs, the Wathen Center annually runs a number of Air Academies. To date, over 1,500 kids have participated in the academies which attract middle and high school students. They are exposed to aviation science, weather, navigation and the theory of flight. At the end of the weekly programs they are taken for an airplane ride and earn their Young Eagles certificate.
Many of the students who sign up for the academies come through Flabob’s Elementary School Visitation program. For this after-school event, team members share the theory and fundamentals of flight with fifth and sixth graders at their school, before bringing them to Flabob to tour a DC-3 and visit a number of other historic aircraft. For most kids, it is their first experience walking around an airport. Making them aware of what happens at an airport generates appreciation for aviation activity that can last a lifetime.
Flabob, however, is more than education. It is a busy hub for recreational pilots, hosting a wide range of activities from Fly-Ins, an annual Veteran’s Day Celebration, Kite contests, Model Aircraft building, to an Aerospace & Leadership program that has been set up for 400 visiting Chinese students, along with numerous other aviation events. EAA Chapter One is based at the airport which has also provided space for homebuilding pioneers like Ray Stits, Ed Marquart, Bill Turner and Lou Stolp.
Tom Walthen and the French Caudron that he had replicated at Flabob.All of this has been possible because of one man with a vision: Thomas W. Wathen. He saved the airport from some aggressive developers at the eleventh hour back in 2000 and has invested a tremendous amount of time, effort and money into upgrading many of the facilities on the airport. Tom not only envisioned the airport as a destination facility for pilots all over the Southwest, but he set out to create educational activities that will preserve and expand the legacy of Sport and General Aviation by drawing new people into it. The high school, the A&P program and the flight training operations are positive steps in assuring growth in aviation.
