Program helps people with disabilities become pilots

Hayleigh Colombo | (Lafayette, Ind.) Journal and Courier

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Hours before takeoff, Deirdre Dacey approached a small white plane parked outside a Purdue University Airport hangar to complete a preflight inspection.

Dacey's hands brushed over the red-striped, two-seat Sky Arrow 600 Sport aircraft, checking components from the tightness of bolts to levels of gas and coolant fluids.

Marking boxes on the detailed inspection checklist had become a welcome routine for the Dedham, Mass., development professional — a signal it was almost time to fly.

Less than a month ago, that notion was merely a dream that she never believed was possible. Dacey, who now uses a wheelchair, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis by her 16th birthday.

"It was always an interest," Dacey said. "I got struck by the Top Gun bug, and then it went on the back burner. But it started to come back, the desire. ... It was the chance to be able to control something again. It's amazing and liberating."

By the end of June, Dacey and four others from across the USA will be equipped with a sport pilot's certificate because of a flight and ground training program called Able Flight, a not-for-profit organization based in Chapel Hill, N.C., that trains people with physical disabilities or injuries for roles in the aviation industry. On its website, the organization says most of its flight training takes place here.

The program is in its fourth year here. Purdue flight instructors train participants on adapted aircraft. The trainees use their hands to control the rudder and brake, which a pilot's feet traditionally operate.

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Bernard Wulle, an associate professor of aviation technology at Purdue, said he hopes the program inspires people with disabilities to realize that aviation is a viable career option.

"We need people in the aviation industry who are problem solvers and out-of-the-box thinkers," Wulle said. "These five are it."

The five-week experience also is a chance for vindication, said Lt. Andrew Kinard, an Iraq war infantry veteran who lost his legs in 2006 five weeks into his first deployment because of an improvised explosive device. Kinard is studying law and business at Harvard University.

"We all have had different experiences, but the common thread is that we spend all day dealing with obstacles," Kinard said. "In the air, there's no difference between us and anything else. We've got total, unfiltered freedom."

Warren Cleary of Dunwoody, Ga., plans to use the credential as a stepping-stone for a potential career. Cleary was a member of the U.S. National Skydiving team before suffering a spinal cord injury in 2011.

He hopes to build on the license from his Able Flight training and eventually become a pilot certified to fly skydivers on the way to their jumps.

Participants get a comprehensive view of the flight industry and fly to destinations across Indiana and into Illinois.

"I was doing flight simulators, but I really wanted to feel G-force," said Young Choi of San Jose, Calif. The software engineer developed polio as a child. "I wanted to be in the sky, but I didn't imagine I was able to."

Dennis Akins, an engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who also serves as a Civil Air Patrol unit commander and aerospace educator in Weatherford, Texas, said he hopes his pilot training experience teaches others to not give up. Akins has been paralyzed for more than 30 years because of a trampoline accident.

"This has been something I've wanted to do since I was a kid," he said. "I don't quit. I don't give up on stuff, like learning how to drive or having kids. ... This is fulfilling that dream."