When it comes to learning new skills and crafts in the Boy Scouts, the BSA encourages Scouts to learn by doing. So when 150 Scouts and Venturers wanted to experience the fun of flight, they took to the Wadsworth Props and Pistons Festival at Wadsworth Municipal Airport to earn Aviation merit badges and hop in the cock pit for themselves. 

Venturing volunteer James Bailey says the event had an impressive turnout and points to the Wadsworth-based EA Young Eagles Chapter 846 for sponsoring the plane rides and encouraging interest in the field.

“It is a way to help get kids interested in aviation,” Bailey said to Wadsworth Post.

Caitlyn Collins, president of the Wadsworth Aviation Venturing Crew 2446, volunteered at the event with other Crew members. 

“We are helping to run this show as a way to spread the word about aviation,” Collins said.

Collins says her Venturing Crew is a great way to make friends with people interested in aviation like her. In fact, Collins and others from the Crew are hoping to use the skills they learned in Venturing to earn their pilot’s license. 

“We have three people in our group who are working on getting their pilot’s license right now,” she said. “I’m working on mine too, but right now I’m in ground school. We work on the simulator and have fun together and build a lot of friendships. We also do a lot of fundraisers so that other kids can get involved.”

Collins and her Venturing are proving that the sky is, literally, the limit for their futures in aviation.

Get the full story on how interest in aviation is taking flight for Venturers and Scouts by heading to the Wadsworth Post.