Future pilots taking flight
Sam Hazo, left, and Joska Troutman, center, take a ride on a plane with state Sen. Camera Bartolotta at Washington County Airport. Hazo and Troutman, both of Peters Township, won the Pilots of the Future Competition held by California University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Innovation at Southpointe and earned a ride in Bartolotta’s plane, which she keeps at the Washington County Airport.
From left, Skyward Aviation Pilot Juriaan De Blok, Joska Troutman, state Sen. Camera Bartolotta and Sam Hazo prepare to take a ride on Bartolotta’s plane.
Joska Troutman, 18, takes a selfie with state Sen. Camera Bartolotta on her plane while taking flight from Washington County Airport.
The view from state Sen. Camera Bartolotta’s plane while Peters Township’s Joska Troutman and Sam Hazo take a ride with Bartolotta after winning a pilot competition.
Ruth Ann Troutman wasn’t nervous.
Neither was Sam Hazo, or Becky Dixon, or Karen and Mike Marcinko.
All five are parents of winners of the Pilots of the Future Competition held earlier this year at California University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Innovation at Southpointe. For winning the competition, their children got a first-hand look at a passenger aircraft and were taken for a 30-minute flight Saturday at Washington County Airport. The first-time program, which the center developed with the assistance of Scott Keddal, a retired U.S. Air Force and commercial pilot, is a games-based learning activity that uses technology to challenge students with real-world experience. Students from 12 area schools were placed in either three-to nine-person teams and asked to use flight-simulation technology on loan from the university to master the challenges of air travel logistics and piloting an aircraft.
Peters Township High School students Joska Troutman, Samuel Hazo and Nathan Levin won the high school competition, while Danny Marcinko, Molly Dixon, and Sam Sweeney, all students at Pleasant Hills Middle School, won the middle school division. Levin was on vacation with his family and could not be present Saturday.
“I found an old video not too long ago,” said Sam Hazo of McMurray, the father of Samuel, a junior at Peters Township, who started taking flying lessons when he was 13, “We were at the airport and it was pre-2001. He was in a stroller and made us stop and look at the airplanes. Every Halloween, he dressed as a pilot.”
“This is all he really ever wanted to do,” added Hazo, who writes symphonies. “We’ve done everything to encourage him too. If you don’t follow your talent, then it will haunt you for the rest of your life.”
For Troutman, flying is in his genes. His father is an airline pilot and his mother, Ruth Ann, has been a licensed pilot since 1987.
“He (Joska) flew a glider last summer and was pretty good,” Ruth Ann Troutman said of her son, who will be a junior. Like his father, Joska wants to be a commercial airline pilot.
Both Hazo and Troutman were taken for a separate flight by state Sen. Camera Bartolotta (R-Carroll Township). Bartolotta is a pilot and keeps her aircraft at Washington County Airport.
The three winners from the middle school division were not as sure about a career in aviation as their high school counterparts, but they were eager for an opportunity to be taken for a plane ride.
“I am really excited and happy about winning the contest,” said Sweeney, 12.
Marcinko, 12, said he was never in a small airplane.
“I have only been on commercial ones,” he said.
Christopher Allen, community education manager at California University’s Innovation Center, who developed the program with Keddal, said he was pleased with the outcome and enthusiasm shown by the students. In addition, both Peters Township High School and Pleasant Hills Middle School, will receive a copy of the Future Pilots program and simulator software.
Dale Risker, president of the Southpointe Chamber of Commerce, spoke with the winners before they went on their flight and said there is a need for pilots.
“I am a pilot and my son is a pilot for a Fortune 500 company,” said Risker, adding the chamber as an aviation club and encouraged the students to come to a meeting.