Air Force combat veteran and retired Ford Motor Co. chief corporate pilot John Ratcliff and the nonprofit organization Black Pilots of America are bringing a “Thrill of the First Flight” event to the Statesboro-Bulloch County Airport, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, May 18. Children and teens in third through 12th grades will be treated to free flying experiences.

“We’re going to try to fly as many youth as we can, many for the first time in their life,” Ratcliff told Statesboro City Council. “We call this ‘the Thrill of the First Flight,’ and it may be their first flight, especially a flight where you can look out of the airplane and see around you and see what’s going on.”

After the event opens at 9 a.m., flights will begin at 10 a.m. and continue to 2 p.m.  “or  until the pilots get tired,”  he said. At least six planes – single-engine, multi-seat propeller planes, not to be confused with the jets Ratcliff used to fly – will be used to fly up to three youth at a time. Volunteer pilots, including local pilots but also some from as far away as Chattanooga, Tennessee, weather permitting, will bring planes and take turns taking the children and teens up.

Each young person must be accompanied to the event by a parent or guardian.  “We won’t babysit,” he said.

But once there, the young people will fly with the pilots and will not be accompanied by their parents inside the planes, he explained in an interview. For youth who choose not to fly, the organizers will also have two electronic flight simulators set up at the airport.

“We’ve got free food for the kids. We’ll have concessions for the adults; they can buy it, but it’s not something that we profit from,” Ratcliff said.

Other pilots volunteer the use of their planes, their time, knowledge and skills. But Ratcliff buys the aviation fuel and essentially pays “for it all,” he told Statesboro’s mayor and council.

“I’ve been blessed, and I’m glad to give back,” he said.

Career opportunities

The main purpose of the event is to focus the attention of young people on the diverse careers available in aviation and introduce them to aviation industry personnel. Printed materials mention an objective to “provide awareness of aviation to the underserved community.” But the event is open to youth in the grades 3-12 age bracket, regardless of race or family resources.

“We offer an availability for them to understand what the diverse aviation opportunities are,” Ratcliff said. “We have personnel from various avenues. We have pilots from the airlines, … retired reservations managers. We have all kinds of assistance there to talk to the kids and let them know what aviation has to offer.”

Some personnel from Middle Georgia State University, which has a School of Aviation at its Eastman campus, will take part in this, he said. The Georgia Forestry Commissions aviation program is expected to participate by providing a demonstration 500-gallon water drop from one of its single-engine tankers at approximately 11 a.m. The Forestry Commission’s aviation assets include 17 patrol aircraft covering all 159 counties, two 500-gallon air tankers and one Bell 407 helicopter with a 300-gallon water bucket.

To sign up for the event, go online to First Flight-Statesboro at Eventbrite.com.

Previous events

The Southern Georgia Chapter of Black Pilots of America, and Ratcliff, have hosted Thrill of the Flight events at the Waycross-Ware County Airport in Waycross for three consecutive years now. This March, they partnered with some other organizations, including Savannah Aviation, to host a first-time similar event at Savannah-Hilton Head International Airport.

John H. Ratcliff, originally from Texas, became a licensed pilot during his junior year in college under a Vietnam War-era program in which the Air Force paid for flight school for young pilots. He then served as an Air Force pilot, through the 1968-69 heat of the war, flying F-4 Phantom jets and, he reports, 207 combat missions.

Attaining the rank of major, he remained in the Air Force on active duty for five and a half years and in the reserves for another eight.

Ratcliff flew corporate planes, including Gulfstream jets, for Ford Motor Company from 1973 to 2005 and was in charge of the corporation’s Flight Department for 10 years until his retirement in 2005. He was based in Detroit during his Ford years.

He now lives in Savannah but says that he will always be a Texan.

Black Pilots of America, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, has a mission “to train youth to participate in and advance various types of employment withing the field of aviation,” his press release states. Each summer BPA conducts a flight academy that provides ground school and 10 hour of flight time for qualified, screened individuals.