The Crow's Nest
at USF St. Petersburg
Photo courtesy of Barbara Arman
College students are often told that university will be a time of rediscovery and pushing one’s boundaries. For students at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, not even the sky is the limit.
“Once I saw the water and the airport right next door, I thought ‘that’s it, thank you, I’m sending in my application [to college],” said Emilia Wrucke, a marine biology sophomore at USF St. Petersburg and two-time flight scholarship recipient from Friends of Albert Whitted Airport (FOAWA).
The FOAWA program just distributed its third round of scholarships to 29 students, through which Wrucke received a $5,000 Intermediate Flying Scholarship. Although it’s a relatively new program, FOAWA has already made plenty of dreams come true.
Wrucke has been interested in flying since she was in elementary school.
“It was just an idea, my 10-year-old self didn’t understand that was something I could actually do,” she said.
When she was in eighth grade, Wrucke took to the skies for the first time in a discovery flight gifted to her by her dad. She continued flight lessons throughout high school in Kentucky, but her academic responsibilities meant that her time in the air was on and off.
FOAWA changed that. Since her first year at USF St. Petersburg, Wrucke has fallen back in love with flying as she gets to pilot single-engine airplanes over St. Petersburg’s stunning coastline.
“I don’t even know how to describe how beautiful it is compared to Kentucky,” she said, adding that zooming over the blue waters so often feels unreal. “Like flying over the little fields there was cool, but here it’s like a dream.”
Wrucke explained that her lessons are self-paced; the scholarship amount acts as a credit that can be accessed to pay for every flight hour, and scheduling her hours is up to her.
Her lessons begin with a comprehensive pre-flight checklist, making sure the aircraft is fueled, communicating with ground control and then taking off as the primary pilot. Her flight instructor accompanies her, but Wrucke said being able to be the main pilot in such a powerful machine makes her feel free and in control.
“Being the pilot in command, being able to see the world from a point of view that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to see it from, it’s such a beautiful thing,” Wrucke said.
For Barbara Arman, the community engagement coordinator at FOAWA, this kind of passion is what’s made the program so successful.
“We have kids that have come here and gotten their private pilot’s license, and now are the instructors,” Arman said.
The thrill of being seeing students come in and achieving what they once thought was impossible is what keeps the program going.
The FOAWA scholarships are entirely funded by donations, and at this year’s ceremony on April 5, Arman said she saw more support from the community than she ever had before.
“It was a two-hour event and everyone stayed right until the end to take photos, it was just phenomenal,” she said, adding that elected officials, academic leaders and prominent pilots like Captain Barrington Irving were all in attendance.
She’s very optimistic about the future of student aviation and feels that Albert Whitted’s presence in St. Petersburg has been essential to cultivating community.
According to the City of St. Petersburg, the airfield has an estimated economic impact of $128 million annually and also supports Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital and other medical transport services.
As for Wrucke, she hopes to combine her passion of science and aviation by pursuing a career in aerial surveying of flying for humanitarian aid.
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