Munificently Securing Aviation’s Future

The Ray Foundation, a Florida-based organization supportive of aerospace-based educational initiatives and a long-time patron of EAA’s youth programs, has established a $600,000 matching grant. Through 31 July 2024, the Foundation will match every dollar committed to the EAA’s Education Center in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

EAA Aviation Foundation director Margaret Brill stated: “This doubles the opportunities with every dollar supporting the Education Center. The Ray Foundation has seen the enormous benefit to aviation education that has already occurred at this facility in just over a year, and this is a way to ensure that EAA can focus on the quality, widely available programming that helps the discovery of possibilities within flight.”

The EAA Education Center opened in July 2022. The two-story, thirty-thousand-square-foot facility includes a Youth Education Center and a Pilot Proficiency Center for current aviators seeking to broaden their aeronautical skill-sets.

Among the additional educational initiatives hosted at the Education Center are a series of Pilot Proficiency Center activities during EAA AirVenture week, the 2023 National Intercollegiate Flight Association Safety And Flight Evaluation Conference (SAFECON) national championships, EAA Air Academy and GirlVenture programs, and myriad utilizations of the center’s resources by schools and youth groups.

Beyond Oshkosh, the EAA Ray Aviation Scholarship program continues to facilitate the actualization of young peoples’ dreams of flight. To date, four-hundred recipients of subject scholarship have completed flight-training.

The program is funded by the Ray Foundation, managed by the EAA, and administered through the EAA Chapter network. Scholarships are awarded to young people aspiring to earn Private Pilot Certification.

Through an annual grant given to EAA National by the Ray Foundation, local EAA chapters are able to grant scholarships to deserving young people. Ray Aviation Scholarships amount to $11,000 and may be applied to offsetting the cost of recipients’ flight-instruction.

Since the program’s 2019 introduction upwards of 730 scholarships have been provided. The current pilot-certification completion rate for Ray Scholars is 81-percent, with approximately 240 additional awardees currently in flight-training.

EAA vice-president of communities and member programming Rick Larsen stated: “Many aspiring pilots fall short of their goal due to the cost of flight-training, so EAA working with the Ray Foundation helps relieve some of the financial pressure and make the goal of becoming a pilot even more accessible for future generations. The high completion rate of our scholars demonstrates how this program has a direct impact on growing the aviation community.”

The awarding of Ray Aviation Scholarships is predicated, in part, upon applicants meeting EAA chapter and scholar eligibility criteria indicative of aptitude and commitment to success. EAA chapters approved for the program nominate prospective recipients who are subsequently vetted by the EAA.

In addition to monies, the EAA, in cooperation with the Lightspeed Aviation Foundation, provides Ray Aviation Scholarship awardees Zulu-3 headsets to mark milestones such as first solo flights and successful completion of FAA knowledge examinations.

Founded in 1953 by a group of aviation enthusiasts headed by veteran aviator Paul Poberezny, the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) is an Oshkosh, Wisconsin-based non-profit aviation and aerospace organization dedicated to growing participation in flight, aircraft construction, and other aeronautical endeavors via the sharing of the spirit of aviation. Globally, the EAA’s two-hundred-thousand-strong member base is organized into nearly one-thousand chapters.

FMI: www.eaa.org