This is a slideshow from the recent Freedom Wings day held 24th August 2010.BBC Radio Northampton came to cover the story and it is being played to the slideshow. It was broadcast on the the John Griff Show.
Freedom Wings at Cranfield Airport, EGTC
On TUESDAY 24th August 2010, Freedom in the Air (FITA) will be hosting a ‘Introduction to Aviation’ day beginning at 09:30 from Cranfield Airport in Bedfordshire. The day is named, for obvious reasons, Freedom Wings and, with the support of Cranfield Airport, will be Freedom in the Air’s fourth at the Airport for the 2010 summer flying season. A movie from the our first flying day with Variety Club can be seen here -
A group of young people with disabilities will find the sky is the limit this week when they have a free flying lesson at a Bedfordshire airfield.
Disabled flying school Freedom in the Air is holding a Freedom Wings taster day at Cranfield Airport on Tuesday, and has invited 23 people aged between nine and 19 to learn how to pilot a plane.
The young people all have some form of disability and attend the Young Inclusive People (YIP) club at the Pemberton Centre in Rushden.
Freedom in the Air founder Gautam Lewis, who uses crutches after contracting polio as a child in India, organised the Freedom Wing day to show people disability is not a barrier to achievement.
He said: “I thought maybe I should do something positive about supporting disabled people, help them learn new skills and push them to a new level of confidence so that they can have opportunities.
“It’s trying to show what we can do regardless of disability.”
The young people will look around a light aircraft and airport hangars, learn how aeroplanes work and then take to the skies for 30 minutes with an instructor, who will let them take control if they feel confident enough.
Three previous Freedom Wings days at the airport were very successful, and Gautam plans to hold two more in September.
Wheelchair user Janette Marsland, who attended the last Freedom Wings day in July with the activity club PHAB, said: “You leave the wheelchair on the ground, no restrictions and you carry on – it’s confidence, it’s freedom, it’s fantastic. I did not want to land the plane and just fly off into the sunset.”
The YIP club is funded by Northamptonshire County Council and Continue reading ‘Freedom Wings day: Aug 24th 2010, EGTC’
17
Aug
Two more articles from Chester Ad-PHAB in newspaper, Chester Standard and Chester Chronicle from their Freedom Wings day. Click on both articles to enlarge the text.
Our next guests will be a group of 25 youngsters from Cultural Community Partnerships.
CCP is a sports, leisure and cultural trust that manages the Pemberton Leisure and Conference Centre and the Splash Pool, both in Rushden and the Nene Centre in Thrapston.
CCP delivers sports, leisure, arts and heritage activities for all, throughout the communities of East Northamptonshire. Playschemes for children, a wide variety of fitness classes, help with healthy lifestyles, swimming clubs, squash, spinning classes, evenings of entertainment and music and arts events all come within the range of what they do.
19
Jul
On SATURDAY 17th July 2010, Freedom in the Air (FITA) hosted an ‘Introduction to Aviation’ day beginning at 10:30 from Cranfield Airport in Bedfordshire. The day was named, for obvious reasons, Freedom Wings day and, with the support of Cranfield Airport, was FITA third at the Airport for the 2010 summer flying season.
10 youngsters with a mixture of disabilities from PHAB had the chance of a lifetime to experience the freedom of flight, in the hope that it may expand their horizons after they attended the “Freedom Wings” day.
Phab’s aim is to promote and encourage people of all abilities to come together on equal terms, to achieve complete inclusion within the wider community. Phab has been working with Authorities around the country to help them fulfil their duty to provide Short Breaks for Disabled Children and their families. Phab runs over 200 clubs around the country, offering all sorts of activities, according to what the members want – it could be flying aeroplanes, drama, art, circus skills, to swimming or just chilling out together.
“Having had the opportunity to fulfil one of my life long ambitions is absolutely amazing and at the same time unbelievable. From a very young age I have wanted to experience sitting in the cabin of an aircraft and help the pilot fly the plane and thanks to PHAB my dream has come true! The experience was far better than I had ever imagined it to be; I was able to take control of the aeroplane whilst both on the ground and when flying 2000 feet in the air above Bedfordshire.” Janette, PHAB Chester.
View some photos from the day:
Our aim is to show that anyone with a disability can reach for the skies, and achieve virtually anything, sometimes with only the very smallest amount of support. The pilots ‘one off’ flight could be as life changing for them as someone who flies every week and ends up with their Private Pilots Licence. To have piloted an aircraft even once is clearly a massive experience for a person with a disability and a huge achievement.
“Thanks for organising the Freedom Wings event for PHAB last Saturday at Cranfield. I thoroughly enjoyed my turn at piloting. My wife was somewhat overwhelmed though! I enjoyed it so much that I am hoping to have some more lessons with Freedom in the Air and Cranfield Flying School, which will be fun, thanks” said Charles.
Buying flight equipment? Want to save money and help a worthwhile cause?. Buy online from Pooleys flight equipment and get a 5% discount when you use the Freedom in the Air promotional code. Every purchase you make also benefits Freedom in the Air who get a percentage of the sale as a commission.
Freedom in the Air promotional code is ‘freedomintheair’ to get your 5% discount
Simply enter this code in upper or lower case when checking out of your purchase and you will receive the 5% discount on your order.
Thank you for your support!
Freedom in the Air and Pilot Magazine have partnered with Metropolis Music, the organisers of V-festival 2010, to offer a VIP weekend camping festival ticket-for-two through a raffle. Two runners-up will get a Freedom in the Air pilot shirt and hat. Raffle tickets cost £12 and the winner gets a pair of backstage camping tickets. This includes access to the VIP backstage bar where you can hang out with the rock stars. The V-festival is 21-22 August, 2010, at Hylands Park, Chelmsford. The nearest airport for those wishing to fly to the festival is Southend.
To enter visit www.freedomintheair.org/freedom-raffle/
The line-up includes Kings of Leon, Kasabian, Paul Weller, Pet Shop Boy and The Prodigy (shown). The winner will get a “Prodigy Goodie Bag” given by The Prodigy.
The raffle closes 10 August and the draw date is 15 August. Freedom in the Air will video the draw and post it online so you can see the draw take place. The winning ticket number will be posted to the Freedom in the Air website and the winner will be contacted directly by email and phone.
The promotion is to raise the profile of Freedom in the Air (FITA) – a unique not-for-profit flying school specifically for people with disabilities based at Cranfield Airport, EGTC. FITA is committed to opening horizons for people with disabilities so that they can fly higher socially, physically and professionally.
A recent article in Pilot Magazine highlighted headaches that some women experience who are not so tall, and unable to reach the rudder pedals in light aeroplanes. We wrote to their airmail section editor informing them that perhaps hand controls that pilots with lower limb disabilities use could be a solutions for those that are of limited height.
The Douglas Bader Foundation is a charity organisation, formed in honour of Sir Douglas Bader in 1982 by family and friends, many of whom had flown side by side with Douglas during World War 2. Douglas was honoured in 1976 with a Knighthood for his contribution and work on behalf of the disabled. The mission of the foundation is to continue Douglas’ work in conjunction with and on behalf of individuals with a disability.
FITA spoke to David Bickers, the Chairman of the organisation about Douglas and the work of the foundation.
Vikramshila Education Resource Society is a non profit non governmental organization working in the area of education with the mission of “making quality education a reality for all children”.
They asked me if I would visit schools project that they run whilst I was in Kolkata during Full Circle photographic show that UNICEF hosted. Those few days were some of my most brilliant days. Meeting fresh face youngsters and giving them the gift of imagination. We showed the groups a video show reel of the different activities that I get up to, from photography to polio eradication, flying to rock n roll, to sky diving and so on. At the end of the film, they asked me lots of questions.
18
Mar
With great joy I have passed my IMC flight test. It was a hard test and required 100% concentration. We did general handling, limited and partial panel work, spin recovery, holding patterns 3 times, several missed approach procedure, and expect the unexpected. What i mean by this, is that during one of the missed approach, instead of ATC giving the expected instructions, they told us to leave the circuit away from Cranfield, tracking 310 (I used the Daventry VOR to track this radial) then make our own navigation to CIT beacon – and then follow the right entry pattern to hold. After this we did 2 NBD approaches, followed by a few ILS approaches. Time keeping is crucial, so is mainting your headings, heights, minimum decision altitudes…
“The Answer my friend is blowing in the WIND” – always know where the wind is and make drift and head wind – tail wind corrections as necessary..
Learning to fly in IMC conditions has made me a much safer, better and more disciplined pilot.
A-MICE-ATM Checklist
A – AWOS/ATIS : Get the information.
M – Marker Beacons/Mag Compass (align).
I - Identify EVERYTHING that you may need (including GPS setup).
C – Course inbound on the final approach.
E – Entry (Straight-in, procedure turn, DME arc, vectors to final, etc).
A – Altitudes (as per the profile view).
T – Time (if applicable).
M – Missed Approach – at least the initial climb and turn(s).
At a meeting held at the CAA on 26 January 2010, the CAA Chief Executive Andrew Haines confirmed to Martin Robinson of AOPA that it is CAA policy to retain the UK IMCR. The CAA is to begin dialogue on how this could be achieved once the EASA licensing system is implemented. For those considering on embarking on more flight training, the IMCR would be a good course to do in my opinion having experienced it first hand.
02
Mar
On February 23rd it was Rotary International’s birthday. It also saw the ongoing Thanks for Life / End Polio campaign here in the UK. The target is to raise more then £1 million pounds towards the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation challenge grant. Their organisation has donated US$355 million and Rotary will match it by US$200. I did a tour of the BBC news offices to help in the awareness campaign. This is an extract from BBC Radio 5 live interview which took place on February 21 st 2010. Other alliance members for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative are UNICEF, WHO and the US Centres for Disease control and prevention.
‘Thanks for Life’, a project involving the clubs and members of Rotary International in Great Britain & Ireland, aimed at helping to eradicate polio throughout the world. Thanks For Life is a purpose-built initiative, specifically designed to combine the talents and efforts of every Rotary club in RIBI with these main aims… Continue reading ‘Full Circle India: Thanks for Life; End polio’
Shri Kanti Ganguly, Minister in Charge Department of Sundarban Affairs, Sports and Youth Services Government of West Bengal has set up Prantibhandi Village. It is a small village of education facilities, nursing training, a garment factory – all to support and help young people and their families who have a wide range of disabilities. I was very proud to have been invited to speak at a rally to 15,000 people on 3rd December, the UN day to promote rights for people with disabilities. The event was organised by Shri Kanti Ganguly. It was one of the very few NGO’s in Kolkata that is run mostly by people who have disabilities.
Various news footage of Full Circle Photographic show, Kolkata, India Nov-Dec 2009
- Airmanship (15)
- Ambassadors of FITA (4)
- Aviation Without Borders (11)
- Comedy (7)
- Disability news (99)
- Exams (11)
- Facts (1)
- Film (64)
- freedom podcast (11)
- Freedom Wings (26)
- Fun Flying (39)
- Good causes (85)
- Ground School (38)
- Hand Controls (16)
- History (18)
- images (45)
- inspiring (34)
- Ipod section (5)
- Media (81)
- Merchandise (5)
- Music (14)
- Other friends work we like (15)
- Patrons and Ambassadors (4)
- People (34)
- Pilot in Command (8)
- Pioneers (27)
- Plane trips (38)
- PPL Training (55)
- Questions in the air (12)
- Raffle (1)
- Random (13)
- Rotary International (29)
- Smiling Wings (9)
- Survey (1)
- Uncategorised (12)
- Uncategorized (1)
copyright 2010 Freedom in the Air