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A school conference room became “Nelson Wilks Herron Air Base” for two days as Leading Edge Aviation Foundation volunteers walked 650 students through the mechanics, careers and hobby possibilities tied to Arkansas’s largest export industry.
Volunteers staged 13 sessions of roughly 50 students each across the two-day Aviation Adventure, part of the school’s Arkansas Week programming.
Bill Holland, president of Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 775, demonstrated the Four Forces of Flight for students. The hands-on segments covered lift, weight, thrust and drag.
Holland teamed with Leading Edge Aviation Foundation President Gerald Gaige to run the programs, mixing educational videos with direct Q&A about how aircraft fly and how aviation careers work.
Aviation and aerospace lead Arkansas’s export economy, a point organizers emphasized as students considered whether the field might fit their futures.
Leading Edge Aviation Foundation, known locally as LEAF, runs several ongoing programs for Mountain Home Public Schools and Mountain Home Christian Academy. Those include permanent Aviation Corner resources in school libraries and class field trips to the airport hosted by LEAF and EAA pilots.
The foundation also funds scholarships for graduates pursuing aviation career education and cash awards for students in grades 6 through 11 to attend aviation science summer camps.
Local pilots offer individual flight experiences to interested students through the STEM Flights network at stemflights.org.
Families interested in learning more can reach the foundation at [email protected].
