Averett University will once again host two sessions of the Pathways Flight Academy. The week-long academies will take place June 22-28 and July 13-19 at the George J. Falk Flight Center at the Danville Regional Airport.

Virginia high school students will be in Danville for a week-long intensive course, in which they will spend every day at the airport flying twice daily for roughly 3.5 hours a day.  In between flights, they will have one hour of ground school sessions in which they were learn aerodynamics, and regulations ending with a pre-solo aeronautical knowledge test that hopefully ends with them soloing the aircraft by the end of the week.

Virginia Space Grant Consortium

Pathways Flight Academy is a project of the Virginia Space Grant Consortium, in partnership with the Commonwealth of Virginia, Averett University, Rick Aviation, and the Virginia Department of Aviation. The project offers flight academies for selected high school students statewide in response to the looming national shortage of airline pilots and the growing need for aviation maintenance technicians and air traffic controllers.

This program allows students to explore aviation career fields while learning to fly. The Commonwealth of Virginia and the Virginia Department of Aviation provide funding that permits the Pathways Flight Academies program to be offered free of charge to participants.

Academies are offered during the summer for students who have shown a passion for their career aspirations in becoming commercial pilots as well as an interest in STEM.

Students admitted to this intensive program undertake ground school and flight training that can culminate in their first solo flight at the end of the academy. Students must make themselves fully available for all activities during the program session for full participation in the program.