Union Township teen earns full scholarship for flight training

A 16-year-old from Union Township has been selected as the recipient of a full scholarship for flight training.

The Cincinnati Warbirds, Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter18 of Cincinnati, and the Ray Aviation Scholarship program administered by the EAA in Oshkosh, Wisconsin awarded the Ray Aviation Scholarship to Addison Maloney.

The Ray Foundation works to further the legacy of James C. Ray, an EAA lifetime member who was dedicated to aviation and youth education,

The Ray Aviation Scholarship program provides up to $11,000 scholarships to young people who are seeking to learn to fly, according to a press release announcing the award. It is further explained that The Ray Foundation has provided $1.8 million to fund the scholarship program, which seeks to improve the flight training success rate from the current industry standards of 20 percent to 80 percent for program participants.

“Since its introduction in 2019, the EAA Ray Aviation Scholarship program has allowed over 350 youths to complete their flight training and receive their pilot licenses. The program has been consistently meeting and exceeding its expected 80 percent success rate each year,” reads the press release.

Local EAA chapters are responsible for identifying youth for the Ray Aviation Scholarship program and mentoring them through flight training.

Maloney is a junior at West Clermont High School. She has already completed more than 20 hours of flight training since she rode in a T-6 Texan aircraft at one of the Cincinnati Warbirds events in 2022.

Maloney will continue her training at Flamingo Air Academy based at Cincinnati Municipal Airport – Lunken Field.

It was explained that the scholarship is designed to support a flight student through both written and practical segments of flight training that are part of successful FAA pilot certification.

The EAA chapters play a critical role in the success of the Ray Aviation Scholarship program; Chapters interested in participating are prequalified by EAA through an application process. If selected, they mentor and support the scholarship recipient throughout their flight training journey.

Once selected as a Ray Aviation Scholarship participant, candidates also commit to volunteer service with their local EAA chapter.

Mike White is the Vice President of Cincinnati Warbirds EAA Squadron 18. He explained the qualities that made Maloney the standout candidate.

“She’s very active in the Warbirds and the group, and she was very interested in aviation. She decided that this is what she wants to do as a career, so that’s basically what prompted us to go for that scholarship; I think she’s going to be very successful,” White said.

Bill Greenwald is Chief Pilot and Flight Instructor for Flamingo Air Academy explained that the scholarship is part of a “give back.”

He said, “I’ve had a lot of people along my career of almost 50 years in the cockpit help me get where I am, and for me, there’s a great deal of satisfaction seeing a person complete their training; to see them fulfill an ambition that they’ve wanted to do — they’ve wanted to learn to fly, they wanted to do something and to see them finish the training, graduate, and get their pilot certificate, that’s a lot of satisfaction for me personally.”

Maloney explained that her love for flying started at a young age.

“I was about seven years old,” she said. “I’d always loved the sky for as long as I could remember, but I had a babysitter named Wheezy who took me to Lunken Airport, back when there was a gift shop, and she bought me one of those little [whirlybirds]. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world; it was my favorite thing.”

She added, “Then we sat right under the glide slope of one of the runways and I looked up through the skylight of her van and I just remember thinking that seeing this huge jet fly over me was the absolute coolest thing in the world. I used to play on my mom’s iPod; I play flight simulator games and I bounced around between a bunch of different careers, even flight attendant, until I realized that I could be a pilot and that was about when I was 12 years old, and then ever since then, I have just kept on trucking trying to get as far as I can in aviation because I just love it it’s my calling.”

Maloney has a goal to eventually open her own flight school.

Her love for teaching others about flying was solidified when she recently showed some children around the cockpit of an airplane during an outreach event.

“I was sitting in the cockpit just explaining everything to them and showing how it worked it was incredibly satisfying and very nice to see the looks on their faces when they realized that they knew more than they thought they did,” Maloney said. “Teaching them about these things and then wanting to fly, it’s just it’s very inspiring.”

She added, “And well, when I was younger, I wanted to see somebody, a woman who was younger, who was just as passionate about aviation as me, so I think that being that kind of voice for younger children is very important because when people have a dream, it’s very important to nurture and nurse their dream until it can grow into a goal and I want to be there for all those children that were like me, like the Warbirds have done for me, to create better future for them and to help them create their own path.”

Maloney shared how she balances school, social life, and flying.

“I’m going to be honest, it’s not as smooth as it seems to appear on the surface, but, it takes a lot of time to study aviation and everything, but I think the best way to balance it is to portion off certain parts of your day for different things. So, right when I get home from school, I’ll finish any homework that I have, I’ll give myself about an hour or two hours of rest, and then I’ll start studying for whatever I need to know for any lessons,” she shared. “Something that I need to brush up on right now, I’m studying for my written exam, so I’ll take about two to three hours to study for that, and I mean, my poor mother reads me like 200 flash cards every night.”

She added, “Social life is kind of reserved for the weekends, where I can see my boyfriend and my friends, but I try to keep work within the weekdays.”

Maloney described the feeling she gets when she’s flying.

“I mean of course you’re restrained by the limits of the aircraft that you’re flying, but when you’re in the sky, it feels like you can do anything. They’ve always said that ‘the sky is the limit,’ but when you’re flying, the sky is not the limit, it is just your starting line, and so I think that once you’re actually flying, it just feels like you’re breaking all laws of [gravity], like you shouldn’t even be able to do it; It’s an incredible, incredible feeling, and the feeling of being in control of something so much bigger than yourself and being part of something so much bigger than yourself — I mean talking to the tower even, is so cool, I can’t even put it into good enough words; it’s just amazing.”

She added, “It’s what I was made for.”

The Cincinnati Warbirds, EAA Chapter 18, is one of 900 local chapters of the Experimental Aircraft Association, the world’s largest organization for recreational flying. It meets at various locations around the area, including the Tri-State Warbird Museum at Clermont County Airport, on the first Thursday of each month. More information on the Cincinnati Warbirds, EAA Chapter 18 is available at www.cincinnatiwarbirds.org.