Bed-Stuy Cops' Pilot Program Teaches Kids To Fly

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — Neekee West wakes up every morning at 4:30 a.m. so she can take her son Ronald from East Harlem to the Floyd Bennett Field in southern Brooklyn, where he is learning to fly.

"My 15-year-old is doing something a lot of people have only dreamed of doing," West, 39, told Patch. "Seeing his dream become a reality is such a motivation for me."

West is one of nine students learning how to fly airplanes at United Youth Aviators, the city's first aviation summer camp run by three 81st Precinct police officers who want to see more women and men of color become pilots.

Nine students, two girls and seven boys, are learning how to land a Cessna 172 Skyhawk and log flight hours to earn their own private pilot licenses, camp organizers said. The trio of cops also teaches the kids about the physics behind flight.

"I was really excited, I wasn't really as nervous as I thought I'd be," said Ronald, who has wanted to be a pilot since he was three. "It's more of an adrenaline rush than scary."

Bed-Stuy Council Member Alicka Ampry-Samuel and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams came out to the NYPD Aviation Unit at Floyd Bennett Field in Marine Park Tuesday morning to present the camp with $20,000 in funding.

"We always tell our young people to reach for the stars and the sky's the limit, and with this program they are literally in the sky," said Ampry Samuel. "So it's not longer sky's the limit, because they're literally navigating through the sky."

Both politicians said they admired the camp for bringing career training to students of color in an industry that statistics show is dominated by caucasian men. About 92 percent of America's pilots are white and 91 percent are men, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show.

"We want to build a pipeline for new pilots," said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. "These are the jobs of the future."

Co-founder Milton Davis hopes the camp will expand someday into the five boroughs in upcoming years and eventually provide about 50 kids the opportunity to earn their pilots' licenses.

Davis said a big impetus for the program was to provide a path to flight that did not involve enlisting in the military, which is where most professionals are trained. One student wrote in his application essay that, before he found United Youth Aviation, he told his mom, "I'm just going to give up, I don't want to join the air force."

Support for the program came also came from Bed-Stuy entrepreneur Beatrice Jones, owner of Good Samaritan Day Care Center and Honey Baked Ham and Cafe, who donated $10,000, Davis said.

The young pilots will log 12 hours of flight time and 70 hours of instruction time during the six-week program. Pilots need 40 hours of flight time to get their private license, so the kids will need to come back next summer.

Student Toni Poller, 14, said she doesn't want to become a pilot, but a singer, so she's in it to pick up a useful skillset.

"If my friends and I want to go somewhere," she said, "I want to say, 'I'll fly us.'"

Students interested in applying for next year's camp can find out how to apply on the United Youth Aviators website.