This article is a special to The Raider Review. Its author, Col. Ryan, is also the AFJROTC teacher at ERHS and is retired USAF.

Julia Sharapi, a senior at Eleanor Roosevelt High School, has been selected to receive a Chief of Staff of the Air Force Flight Training Scholarship for summer 2018.  This scholarship will cover all expenses for Cadet Sharapi to receive her private pilot license.  She will attend a summer-long training program at one of six universities across the United States which have undergraduate professional aviation programs.  The Air Force will pay all her transportation expenses out and back, room and board, and all training expenses associated with the training.  Besides obtaining their private pilot license, each participating individual will receive college credit for their efforts from the university they attended for the summer.

To obtain a private pilot license, a person must complete an intensive ground school course of study, which covers, among other topics: Federal Aviation Regulations, use of aeronautical charts, radio communication procedures, weather, principles of aerodynamics, and weather.  The individual must then pass a comprehensive Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) knowledge test.  Additionally, a person must receive flight training in an airplane which includes:  Preflight preparation and procedures, airport operations, takeoffs and landings, performance maneuvers, navigation, emergency operations, night operations, and postflight operations.  Students must have at least 40 hours of flight time, including at least 10 hours of solo flight time, and a solo cross country flight of at least 150 nautical miles.  After all that, the student must then pass a comprehensive FAA flight test of several hours testing all these skills.  Once a person becomes a certificated private pilot, they retain that certification for the rest of their life, as the certificate itself never expires.

Sharapi is a Cadet Colonel in the Air Force Junior ROTC (AFJROTC) program at Eleanor Roosevelt High School, and is the program’s Cadet Commander for the school year.  Cadet Sharapi competed against almost 120,000 AFJROTC cadets at almost 900 units worldwide, and was one of 120 selected for this prestigious program.   The selection board considered her academic record, recommendations from her school administration and her AFJROTC instructor, her performance on the annual physical fitness test, and her performance on a standardized Air Force Flight Qualification Test, which compared her to other applicants in areas such as math, instrument interpretation, and data interpretation.

This is the first year for the Flight Scholarship Program.  It is open to Air Force Junior ROTC cadets, with no cost or military obligation.  The Air Force is already making plans for summer 2019, looking to double the number of scholarship recipients to 240 next year.