Award Comes On 110th Anniversary Of First Powered Flight

Brandon White, 17, of Urbana, OH, has received the second annual Mitchell Cary-Don Gum Memorial Aviation Scholarship on Tuesday, Dec. 17, exactly 110 years after the Wright brothers’ first powered flights.

National Aviation Heritage Area Chair Frank Winslow presented the scholarship during the annual first flight anniversary ceremony at the Wright Brothers Memorial on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The scholarship pays for up to $1,500 of instruction toward a light sport or private pilot's certificate.

Currently a senior at Urbana High School, Brandon is also enrolled in the Ohio Hi-Point Career Center’s Aviation Occupations Satellite located at Grimes Field-Urbana Municipal Airport. He has completed a private pilot ground school and is taking private pilot lessons at Mad River Air on Grimes Field. Brandon also volunteers at the Champaign Aviation Museum, where he is helping to restore a B-17 bomber. “He hopes not only to learn how to fly but also how to maintain airplanes,” Winslow said.

Wright “B” Flyer Inc. President Phil Beaudoin also presented Brandon with an Honorary Aviator membership to Wright “B” Flyer, which is based at Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport in Miami Twp. The Honorary Aviator membership includes a free orientation flight on the Wright “B” Flyer, a modern lookalike of a 1911 Wright Model B airplane.

NAHA created the scholarship to memorialize the late Mitch Cary and Don Gum, Wright “B” Flyer trustees and volunteer pilots who died in an aircraft accident in 2011. “With this scholarship, the National Aviation Heritage Alliance hopes to create new pilots and by doing so honor our association with Mitch Cary and Don Gum and how they befriended us, as they pursued their passion for flying,” Winslow said.

The ceremony honors Wilbur and Orville Wright of Dayton, who built the first successful powered airplane in their west Dayton bicycle shop and flew it at Kitty Hawk, N.C. on Dec. 17, 1903.

(Pictured: Brandon White, center, winner of the 2nd Cary-Gum Memorial Flight Scholarship, with (L to R) Frank Winslow, chair, NAHA; Janet Gum, widow of Don Gum; White; Judy Barrazzoto, widow of Mitch Cary, and Phil Beaudoin, president, Wright "B" Flyer INc. The scholarship was presented at the First Flight 110th anniversary ceremony in the National Park's Huffman Prairie Flying Field Interpretive Center, adjacent to the Wright Memorial on Wright-Patterson AFB. The ceremony was held inside because of ice on the memorial plaza. NAHA Photo by Timothy R. Gaffney)

FMI: www.aviationheritagearea.org