DETROIT'S EAST SIDE (WXYZ) — In honor of Women's History Month, I'm taking you inside a Detroit high school that's blazing a trail for women in aviation. I had a chance to talk with a teen girl who is a star student in the cockpit, the visionary principal leading the mission and the district's philanthropic leader securing key funding to lift the program to new heights.
Watch Alicia's report in the video player below
We first caught up with Caiyla Turner as she was leading her classmates in a review before a test. The senior from Detroit has already completed a year-and-a-half at the groundbraking aviation program at Davis Aerospace Technical High School on Detroit's east side.
I asked her what made her want to fly.
“For me, aviation was something that I wasn't quite sure about. I didn't know much about it. However, after meeting actual pilots and doing my research and kind of learning more about the career field, I was like, 'I want to fly a plane,'" Turner said.
She's already spent hours in the cockpit in classroom simulators and completed some real flight hours last summer.
"Do you ever sit there and pinch yourself, like you can't believe it?" I asked Turner.
"Yes, I am so grateful that I've gotten this far.
Principal Michelle Davis has made it her mission to give these students top-notch classroom instruction, plus a true hands-on learning experience. Since she started here two-and-a-half years ago, she has actually gotten the kids back into planes.
“Yes. So, one of the pillars of the district is good stewardship. I remember what the school was like when the students were at the airport, and the kids flew every day. So, my first order of business was to get the planes back in the air," Davis said.
And the district and the school have done that, securing three Cessna planes for the sudents to fly.
“This is the only aviation school on this side of the state. The other one is all the way in Grand Rapids," said Kerrie Mitchell Campbell-Merrins, the President and CEO of the DPSCD Foundation.
Campbell-Merrins told me the foundation secured $7 million in state funding, and another million in federal funding to base the program again at Coleman A. Young International Airport, known to many as 'City Airport'.
“This will help us move from the current location back to the City Airport," Campbell-Merrins said. "And the reason for that is that you will have students learning to be pilots and then you can actually go right outside and drive one, well, fly one, I should say.”
“I actually do enjoy aviation. I want to learn how to fly a plane. I want to be in that field," Turner said.
Caiyla has already passed the fundamentals of instruction test, and will take the basic ground instructor test this May. She gave me a few pilot pointers; that went well, but my attempt to land was another story. Turner took over and landed the plane like a pro.
She's aiming high for a future job in aviation, proving to girls her age that the sky is not the limit.
