Lise Lemeland, left, a professional stunt pilot, explains her custom designed aircraft to a group of students enrolled in the Wright Flight program. (File photo by chief photographer Frederick Gore)
SOUTHWICK- Granville Village School is continuing their participation in the Wright Flight program this year.
For over 10 years, the Granville Village School has been involved in the program. Part of the Aviation STEM program, students are taught from volunteer teachers on Wright Flight days after school for an hour and a half, and are later tested on what they have learned. The program’s objective is to help students set goals and maintain high grades in science, technology, engineering, and math courses.
Linda Blakesley, from the Granville Village School, helps run the Wright Flight Program there. She said that “businesses in western Mass are in desperate need of people coming out of school to go in manufacturing”, and the Wright Flight aviation program helps students discover information about these careers by “showing them what is out there”.
Although participation in this program is voluntary, students must pledge to be tobacco, drug, and alcohol free while participating. At the end of the course, before they take to the sky, students must also attain a grade of at least 85 percent on their end-of-program exam.
Granville Village’s flight day is scheduled for May 4, although they do have a back-up day in case of inclement weather, scheduled for May 25.
Other local schools participating in the Wright Flight Program include St. Mary’s, Westfield’s North and South Middle Schools, and Southwick’s Powder Mill School.
Granville Village School will have up to 16 students in the program, and each get to fly, land, and take off in an airplane with a licensed certified flight instructor by their side.
Blakesley said although the educational program “is a lot of work”, it is also “a lot of fun” for participating students.
Each participating student does have to pay an expense, but many participating schools and PTOs fundraise for this program, to help lessen the cost per student.
Students also get to go on field trips as part of the program and one is scheduled for the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, Conn.
Don Nicoletti, president of the Barnes Airport Support Group, where the Western Mass Wright Flight Program is located, said that the program not only “teaches students on the history in aviation, but also the careers in aviation”.
Nicoletti credits both Linda Blakesley and other staff members at the Granville Village School for making the program such a success there.
