Thursday, July 11, 2024
Cousins Brendon Prescott, left, and Johnny Rankin stand next to a Cessna aircraft at the Calaveras County Airport in San Andreas on July 1. The teenagers are both recipients of the Experimental Aircraft Association Ray Aviation Scholarship. Lance Armstrong/Calaveras Enterprise
A pair of Angels Camp teenagers are spending this summer earning their private pilot’s licenses through the assistance of scholarship money.
Cousins Brendon Prescott, 17, and Johnny Rankin, 16, are both recipients of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Ray Aviation Scholarship.
The scholarship provides $11,000 apiece for Prescott and Rankin to finance their flight-training expenses. To earn this merit-based scholarship, both boys fulfilled various requirements, and they must complete reports on their progress to retain their scholarships.
Prescott and Rankin also received aviation scholarships last summer. Those scholarships allowed them to attend the EAA Air Academy in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
In Oshkosh, they spent a week with other youth, furthering their knowledge of aviation.
Prescott’s mother, Jessica, mentioned that because her son had so much fun in Oshkosh, little time passed before he was visiting the place again.
“(Prescott) managed to persuade his father to take a road trip all the way back to Oshkosh two weeks later for their annual EAA AirVenture air show,” she said.
Brendon Prescott performs a maintenance checkup on a plane at the Calaveras County Airport in San Andreas on July 1, prior to taking a flight with his flight instructor. Lance Armstrong/Calaveras Enterprise
With their passion for flying, these youth are motivated to continue to add to their total flight time experiences and eventually pursue aviation related careers. Two to three times per week, they can be found at the Calaveras County Airport in San Andreas, working toward their Federal Aviation Administration examinations.
Prescott spoke about how he became interested in flying airplanes.
“My fascination with flying kind of started when my buddy got me into (remote control) airplanes, and we were doing so much crazy stuff,” he said. “I was making guitars fly and everything. And that’s kind of where I just fell in love with it.
“And then a few years (ago), I ended up going on a flight for this thing called Young Eagles. I ended up going flying with Kathy (Zancanella). She’s the old manager at the (Calaveras County) Airport. I ended up flying with her, and that’s kind of, sort of where I just fully fell in love with the whole aspect of aviation.”
Prescott recently completed his first solo flight – an endeavor that his mother, Jessica, admitted transformed her into a very uneasy spectator.
“I have successfully sprouted my first gray hair from watching (that solo),” she told the Enterprise.
But whether or not he makes his mother nervous with his involvement in aviation, Prescott is determined to continue to fly planes and achieve his goals in this field.
Prescott mentioned that he wants to eventually obtain a job working for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) as a spotter plane pilot.
“That’s what I’m mostly leaning towards to do in life, just because I like fire and I like planes and I like to look down on it,” said Prescott, who began flying a Cessna aircraft about two months ago.
“I’ll probably do local Cal Fire. I’m planning, when I get out of high school, to go to Alaska for a while to get a lot more of my ratings that I need to work towards to get that (job). So, I will probably, most likely be headed up to Alaska.”
With about 17 hours of flying thus far, Prescott is approaching the halfway mark of his work toward reaching 40 hours of flight time – the minimum total of hours needed to earn a private pilot’s license.
Overall, Prescott is a very active youth, he noted.
“I do a few sports at Bret Harte (Union High School),” he said. “I play football and I also do track and field. And if I’m not doing that, I’m snowboarding, riding horses, dirt biking, mountain biking a little bit. I haven’t done (mountain biking) as much throughout the years, but I’m very active and busy all the time.”
Like Prescott, Rankin is also eager to continue increasing his flying hours, which had reached 12.5 hours when he and his cousin met with the Enterprise at the county airport on July 1.
Rankin shared details about his goals with aviation.
“The (initial) goal is 40 (hours of flying), and then once I get that, then I’ll start building more hours to get my CFI (certified flight instructor) and my CF double I, and then I’ll get my floatplane and then I’ll get to start building hours and eventually do commercial airliner (flying),” he said.
He added that he desires to be a commercial airline pilot to make a good living, so he can retire and fly seaplanes in Montana.
Rankin mentioned that his love for aviation began at Airport Day at the Calaveras County Airport in 2017.
“They took me up (in a plane) and ever since I was hooked, “he said. “I started buying airplane memorabilia posters. I was like, ‘Oh, this is cool.’”
Rankin’s interest in aviation led him to join one of his mother’s housecleaning business clients, Terry Hayes, on local flights.
“I started working for her, doing yard work, whatever I can to go flying,” he said. “And then I stopped doing that about a year ago, or something like that.
“(Hayes) works out at the airport. She does a lot of floatplane stuff. So, she got me hooked on floatplanes, she got me hooked on aviation. And I worked with her and she took me flying. She worked (at the county airport) for a company over there called Foothill Aviation, and she works (for) a company up in Montana. And she got me hooked on it all, and she’s probably the biggest person I have to thank.”
Rankin noted that among the aspects of flying that he enjoys the most is sightseeing.
“You can see anything you want you; all the backroads,” he said. “It’s just really fun.”
As a home-schooled student through Mountain Oaks High School, Rankin has a more flexible schedule than Prescott, he noted.
“I get a lot more free time to go to work and do a lot of my own stuff and build my cars and boats and stuff,” he said.
Rankin mentioned that he is excited that he has the opportunity to be moving forward in aviation through the Ray Aviation Scholarship, which he received on June 1.
“I’m really stoked about (the scholarship),” he said. “It’s a great scholarship. I really appreciate it. I couldn’t have been able to do it without it. (The scholarship) helps a lot of the young people in aviation.”
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