Wings Of Caring
By Lawrence, James
Ever think of donating your time to help the needy, while doing the thing you love best? Here’s an introduction to the astounding number of opportunities awaiting you.
On a hot Alabama day, an 84-year-old pilot climbs into his Cessna 182 to take part in a Hurricane Katrina relief food supply mission. A continent away, Civil Air Patrol volunteers and cadets continue a days-long aerial search operation for a missing grandmodier. In Montana, the CEO of a major cattle corporation assigns his corporate jet and flight crew to a mercy medical mission to bring an infant with a life-threatening disease to a vital treatment center 1,250 miles away. In Tennessee, the owner of a graphic arts business flies an environmental group’s video team in his Piper Warrior over mountaintop mining sites that have already devastated 400,000 acres of Appalachian Mountain watersheds.
And in the middle of it all is a pilot-with the heart and desire to simply be of service. When we hear of people in crisis, most of us feel an instinctive urge to help, although exactly how to help often remains elusive. Many pilots know of high-profile volunteer aviation organizations, such as Angel Flight (which matches people who need free medical transportation with pilots willing to volunteer their own time and aircraft for such missions), the Civil Air Patrol and the U.S. Air Force auxiliary arm tasked with search and rescue, antidrug surveillance and disaster-relief missions.
But most of us aren’t aware of the sheer multitude of opportunities locally, regionally and nationally that combine flying with that most human of traits: the desire to help a person in need.
There are fringe benefits to answering prayers with wings too: volunteer pilots put general aviation in a positive light and introduce people who’ve never flown in small airplanes, or sometimes even commercially, to the joys of aviation.
To help get your volunteer juices flowing, we’ve put together a broad sample of groups and organizations offering opportunities to make a difference.
A Good Place To Start
Air Care Alliance is a nationwide league of humanitarian flying organizations. The ACA Website (www.aircareall.org) has a well- populated list of public-benefit flying sites.
Saving 100 Lives A Year
Tasked with defending the nation in World War II, the Civil Air Patrol (www.cap.gov) mission has evolved to provide a variety of emergency service missions. More than 56,000 strong, 27,000 are cadets between ages 12 and 21.
The CAP flies 95% of all domestic inland search and rescue missions, and saves more than 100 lives annually. Disaster relief is also a prime CAP mission; the group flies officials to sites, organizes and leads relief efforts, and delivers medical needs such as blood and much more.
The CAP’s fleet of more than 500 corporate-owned aircraft is the largest single-engine fleet in the United States. It also boasts nearly 4,000 member-owned aircraft, 950 ground vehicles and the most extensive communications system in the world. Members log an excess of 100,000 flying hours each year!
There are many roles for volunteers to play in the broad and diversified CAP organization in such areas as flight instruction, search and rescue, logistics, counterdrug, medical transportation, aerospace education and supply. CAP pilots also fly reconnaissance missions for homeland security and, in disaster scenarios, assess damage and help transport emergency personnel from site to site. Minimum requirements for CAP pilots are that they’re 17 years old and have a valid FAA private, commercial or airline transport pilot certificate, a Class III or higher medical certificate and a current flight review.
Earning Their Angel’s Wings
Often, people with chronic or critical health problems can neither get the care they need in their community nor afford to take commercial flights for medical help. That need spawned a compassionate response from pilots nationwide and overseas: tens of thousands of volunteer medical flights are made each year through organizations with a variety of support styles and options.
Some are national with regional hubs, such as Angel Flight America. Others have built extensive networks that link patients in need with local pilot volunteers.
The Angel Flight America Network (www.angelflight.com) is built around air travel resources from private aviation, corporate aviation and, at times, even the airlines to provide no-cost travel for financially challenged patients.
Several regional Angel Flight operations, such as Angel Flight Southeast, utilize regional corporate aviation resources when available and network nationally with Mercy Medical Airlift (www.mercy medical.org) to help patients acquire corporate-donated flights or reduced-rate airline tickets when travel distances are more than 900 miles.
Typical of a regional Angel Flight operation is Angel Flight West (www.angelflight.org), which alone conducts more than 3,800 volunteer missions each year. Characteristic of all medical volunteer flying, pilots pay for flight expenses, including use of the aircraft, fuel and airport fees. Although the pilot’s contribution is tax-deductible, many pilots report their greatest joy comes from meeting passengers and knowing they’re giving life- supporting aid and comfort.
Spend a lot of time overseas? Angel Flight Australia (www.angelflight.org.au) and Angel Flight Europe (www.angelflight – europe.org) offer similar opportunities.
Flying For Life
Flights For Life, (www.flightsforlife.org) offers free air transportation for medically related purposes in both emergency and nonemergency contingencies. FFL works in cooperation with hospitals, blood banks, health-care agencies and private individuals all over Arizona and surrounding states.
FFL provides round-trip air transportation for needy individuals who must travel for treatment, regardless of financial need, if the individual is unable to travel by any other means. Volunteer pilots for FFL fly more than 80,000 miles per year, and are on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year throughout the southwest.
In The Buff!
Easyjet (www.easyjet.com), a European regional airline with its own pilot-training operation, recently followed a new trend in volunteerism by publishing a nude calendar.. .of easyjet pilots! Call it pilot briefing.. .without the briefs. The pilots posed tastefully on airport ramps, runways and in the, ahem, cockpit, with proceeds going to Britain’s National Society For Epilepsy.
Home-Grown Fund-Raising
By the way, you don’t need to find a purpose-built flying organization to be a winged volunteer. Many pilots work with local civic groups, such as the Red Cross, United Way, boy and girl scout troops, churches, hospitals, and individuals or families in crisis. Pilots donate the money they receive from sightseeing flights. Fringe benefits include promoting positive community relations and fostering a great public image for aviation.
A Convenient Truth
Want to win one for Mother Earth? Some groups offer aerial documentation opportunities for a variety of environmental needs.
LightHawk (www.hghthawk.org) has flown missions for the environment for 25 years. The mission is simple but powerful: help the right people get the Big Picture from the air. LightHawk partners with federal and local legislators, corporate decision makers, the media, environmentalists, community members and researchers for more than 700 flights per year in eight countries in North and Central America.
More than 140 pilots work with LightHawk, making flights that support research and documentation to establish the link between ore mine tailings and toxic pollution in rivers and lakes, pinpointing illegal logging activities, monitoring maritime protection areas, ferreting out industrial atmospheric polluters and much more.
Southwings (www.southwings.org), like LightHawk, uses general aviation Rights to increase public, media and governmental awareness of environmental issues by providing documentation of the impact of humankind’s activities on our earth.
Flying Our Furry Friends
People in need aren’t the only recipients of help from above. Flying Paws (www.fly ingpaws.org) provides air transportation and airlift services during disasters and crisis situations to the animal and humanitarian community.
Flying Paws started from a single emergency flight in 2002 to save the life of an abused eight-month-old stray puppy. It has grown to become an Angel Flight-style organization for helping special- needs (old, injured, abused) companion animals.
The organization relies on pilots who volunteer their time and aircraft. Many of the pilots also regularly fly Angel Flight missions. Volunteer pilots spring into action when time or circumstances rule out ground transportation. Animals must be in a safe, secure environment before flight arrangements can be made.
The Flying Paws mission includes emergency flights, special-care flights with same-day delivery, special-needs pets handled with the extreme care they need and animal education efforts in various communities.
Corporate Angels
Corporate Angel Network (www.corp angelnetwork.org) is a national public charity that donates free air transportation to cancer patients traveling to treatment. It matches empty seats, donated on corporate jets making routine busines\s flights, with needy patients.
CAN arranges 1,200 such flights a year. Thanks to flights offered by 500 of America’s top corporations, the charity has coordinated more than 17,000 flights since it was founded in 1981.
Bless The Children
Challenge Air for Kids & Friends (www.challengeair.com) is another notfor-profit that offers motivational, inspirational and life-changing flights to physically challenged children and youth.
In 1993, Rick Amber bought a Cessna 177B Cardinal, named it the Crusader after the fighter he flew in the U.S. Navy, equipped it with overhead pull handles to make ingress and egress easier for handicapped children, and founded Challenge Air. Amber cites his love of children and flying as the prime motivation for starting the endeavor, which flies hundreds of children nationwide every year.
Don’t Forget The Egg Boaters!
Chopper pilots give love, too. Helinet Aviation (www.helinetaviation.com/charity. phtml) donates helicopter rides to raise money for charitable organizations and events, such as Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, Make A Wish Foundation and Children’s Transplant Fund.
Tip Of The Iceberg
We’ve only scratched the surface with this brief look at a few of the many organizations using aviation to help.
Another great way to find the right fit for your humanitarian impulse is to check in at local airports and simply ask around. Online aviation chat groups and forums also have lots of scuttlebutt about local and national opportunities to fly. And don’t forget to Google such phrases as “charity flight,”"aviation volunteers,”"environmental volunteer flights” and similar keywords to bring you a wealth of opportunities.
There are a multitude of local, regional and national opportunities for aviators with the desire to donate their time and their airplanes to worthy causes.
It’s not just people who need assistance from helpful aviators; animals can also require transport and airlift services.
Here are a few more groups to consider.
1 Children’s Flight Of Hope (www.childrensflightofhope.org). Free private air transportation to and from medical facilities for ill or injured children.
2 Flying Samaritans (www.flyingsamaritans.org). Operates free one- day medical clinics in Baja California, Mexico, which doctors, dentists, nurses, translators, pilots and support personnel fly to on weekends.
3 Emergency Volunteer Air Corps (www.evac.org). Promotes and coordinates emergency relief efforts, especially following disasters, using GA airplanes and helicopters.
4 Orbis (www.orbis.org). An organization with a global reach, its mission is to “preserve and restore sight by strengthening the capacity of local partners to prevent and treat blindness.”
5 Wings for Greyhounds, Inc. (www.wingsforgreyhounds.org). Flies retired racing greyhounds from rescue organizations working at Arizona race tracks to adoption centers throughout California.
6 Northwoods AirLifeLine (www.northwoodsairlifeline.org). Pilots in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and northeast Wisconsin fly patients and their families to treatment centers for sendees not found locally.
7 The Volunteer Pilots Association (www.volunteerpilots.org). A member group of Air Care Alliance (mentioned earlier), VPA provides free flights to needy people for medical treatment. Also flies donor organs and other time-critical medical items.
Copyright Werner Publishing Corporation Apr 2007
(c) 2007 Plane and Pilot. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.