#FaithWorks: Maryland pilots with a higher calling sponsor Youth Day at Fort Meade

By H.R. Harris,
Particular to the AFRO

Whereas Michael McFadden flies between San Diego and Seattle Washington as a flight attendant for Southwest Airways, Air Drive pilot Todd O’Brien is usually busy escorting authorities officers in a Cessna-17 abroad.

This previous weekend, nonetheless, each males reported for obligation on a mission of affection because the Maryland Chapter of Pilots For Christ celebrated their annual Youth Day at Tipton Airfield in Fort Meade, Md. 

“It was scary and enjoyable,” mentioned 12-year-old Joshua Morris after he exited the Piper Cherokee airplane flown by O’Brien, a member of the Fort Meade Flight Membership.  

Joshua was one of many Youth Day contributors that took to the skies for the primary time in the course of the occasion designed to show the surprise in addition to the science behind aviation. Youth Day can also be a time for the dad and mom of younger contributors to expertise the marvel of flight with the flight simulators accessible at Tipton Airfield.  

The pilots and volunteers, who workers the Youth Day occasions, like their younger contributors proceed to be fascinated by each the physics and the sensation of being weightless above the clouds.  The hope for the Pilots for Christ group is to plant seeds that can blossom right into a profession in aviation by way of the airplanes on show, check flights, and different actions supplied to youth and fogeys who attended the occasion.   

 The seed was planted for Isaiah Harris, 15, one of many youth contributors. “I can get my pilot’s license by the point I’m 17,” Isaiah mentioned to relations who accompanied him to the Youth Day occasion.  

“This was a beautiful day,” mentioned McFadden, president of the Maryland Chapter of Pilots for Christ. When he isn’t flying, McFadden is the minister on the School Park Church of Christ. 

However McFadden wasn’t at all times a pilot. Identical to the youth gathered for the Pilots for Christ Youth Day, the love of flight and aviation was a small seed that the husband and father of three hoped would develop when he was employed at Southwest Airways as a flight steward.  

Whereas flying throughout the US in a Boeing 737 as a flight steward serving clients, McFadden continued his quest to fly, and over time obtained three pilot scores, and an instrumental flight guidelines ranking– a designation usually taught in bachelor’s diploma aeronautics applications. McFadden’s accomplishments got here by way of laborious self-taught examine and on-the-job coaching.   

“Earlier than Pilots For Christ (PFC), I’d wrestle with the thought of how I might mix my two biggest passions in life- aviation and ministry,”  McFadden mentioned.  “I didn’t know the way, however I figured that there needed to be a technique to do it.”   

The Maryland chapter of Pilots of Christ includes shut to twenty army, airline, and common aviation pilots who’re a part of a nationwide community of individuals shuttling the sick to hospitals and different venues in instances of want. 

One in all McFadden’s most memorable missions got here when Jamila Nelson, 24 and dwelling in South Carolina on the time, battled bone marrow most cancers and wanted to get to Bethesda, Md., for therapy. Nelson nor her household had the funds for a industrial flight from South Carolina to Maryland. 

Nelson reached out to the South Carolina Chapter of Pilots for Christ who organized for McFadden to switch the ailing Nelson to Bethesda, Md. the place she efficiently underwent therapy.  

That flight from South Carolina to Maryland modified every part for McFadden, who now faithfully organizes the Youth Day occasions for the Maryland Pilots for Christ group.  He, like the opposite pilots, gladly provides up valuable time without work from skilled flights to create that spark for the following era, hoping not less than one of many youths who attend their annual occasion will yearn to fly excessive above the clouds.

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