Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves on Saturday for our first Chapter 1361 Young Eagle event of 2019. Our Chapter volunteers did a great job of moving Young Eagles and their parents through the registration process, our program/safety briefing and out to the flightline for their flights.
Our experienced ramp crew moved the planes in and out of the parking area safely and efficiently and we received kudos for our Young Eagles pilots ability to fit into the normally busy Stead traffic pattern operations. We were even able to smoothly transition to Stead single-runway operations when the President of Poland visited Stead to watch one of the Polish drone companies demonstrate their UAV operations.
The event was wrapped up by 12:30 after we had conducted 16 flights which provided 28 Young Eagles with an introduction to general aviation. By then the heat of the day and the usual Reno afternoon winds had made the air a bit too bumpy for comfortable orientation flights.
This was our Chapter’s first use of EAA’s new Young Eagle Online registration process. It took an hour or two of ‘trial by fire’ to learn how this system integrated with our Chapter work flow but after that everyone involved with its use was very impressed with its capabilities. We will definitely be using the online system for all our future Young Eagle events.
We owe many thanks to Mike Scott, Reno-Stead Airport Manager and his team for their support and for providing terminal amenities, Alby Redick and Lynn Jenkins at Aviation Classics for their support and help with ramp operations and Marily Mora and the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority for their donation of the use of the Reno-Stead Airport for our event.
Here are some photos take during the event by our Chapter Photographer, Marsha Pike: