STEWART AIRPORT – Citing the continuing need for commercial plots, the Irene Trowell-Harris Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. is launching a new RedTail Flight Academy at New York Stewart International Airport.
The organization has received the donation of a corporate helicopter, which it has sold to finance the purchase of up to six small airplanes to be used in the flight academy training.
Glen Fraser, who is the immediate past-president of the Tuskegee Airmen chapter, said this new program will accept six post-high school students initially to participate in the one-year program that will result in the students earning their commercial pilot’s license.
“Black and brown individuals and females are definitively a minority and we are trying to change that because there are great opportunities, great careers that can come out of this, a great living,” he said.
The RedTail Flight Academy hopes to launch this spring and is helping to raise scholarships for student transportation, housing, and coursework, as well as fees for pilot’s licenses; the estimated total cost per student is $85,000 to $100,000.
Fraser said the program is not limited to Hudson Valley residents, but any minority high school graduate interested in a career in aviation.
Fraser, himself, has been a United Air Lines pilot for more than 30 years and is retired from the Air National Guard at Stewart Airport.
NEWS STORY PROVIDED BY: Mid Hudson News -www.midhudsonnews.com