Aviation Merit Badge

azpilot

azpilot

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azpilot
A while back, right before I passed my checkride, I signed up to be a merit badge counselor for the aviation merit badge for the boy scout troop attached to the church I attend. One of the required elements of the merit badge is to perform a pre-flight inspection on an airplane. I am taking a half dozen boy scouts to do a pre-flight on the Archer III that I rent at KCHD tonight. It has been really rewarding to talk to these young boys about flying. They have really enjoyed it as well!

I'll let everyone know tomorrow how it goes.
 
I used to teach Aviation Merit badge to Boy Scouts when I first got my PPL. I setup a Microsoft flight simulator for the boys to get some hands on Sim Flight training.
I taught a little bit of ground school too. I even had one of my RC airplanes for them to see how each control surface worked. Next I took them flying for 20 minutes on my dime including learning about preflight. The flying part was optional and not required to get their merit badge. Not all the boys wanted to go flying. I had all parents sign a release of liability forms for the boys who was going flying. This may have been over the top but I really loved introducing them to flying. I don't do this any more.

Just Wondering. How did you arrange it with CAS to do the preflight?

Oh also I used to teach the computer Merit badge.
 
evapilotaz said:
Just Wondering. How did you arrange it with CAS to do the preflight?
Click to expand...

All I did was ask, and they said yes. We'll be out on the ramp after the office is closed, and I told them we would be careful and stay out of everyone's way.
 
I have had several Boy Scouts attend a young Eagles event,where they got a flight ,after doing the pre flight.
 
I did a bunch of Boy Sprouts doing their merit badge stuff. We had to double up with the YE for the flight part because the BSA requires a million smooth, and most of us didn't have that but the YE will bump that up for you.
 
I was on the local list for Aviation Merit badges for a while, we would do a presentation at their meeting during their "White Planes" or paper airplane event and introduce the badge. We would even bring a glider out and have them help assemble it, then after doing a preflight and look over the flight controls. Put it back in the trailer.
We would get a few that would complete the badge requirements.
 
I'm an eagle scout, but I never did the aviation merit badge. Sounds awesome!
 
evapilotaz said:
What's a million smooth? Insurance
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Yes, your insurance policy has three limits: liability total, per seat bodily injury, and property damage limits. Often the per seat limit is less than the total (1M, 100K, 1M is common). Smooth puts them all at the policy limit. The EAA YE rider will raise your liability limts up to $1M if you carry at least $100K.

There were some other nonsense the BSA wanted but we blew them off (copies of my log books etc...).
 
I sent a couple emails out about this merit badge when I owned my Cherokee. I got a "thanks!" and that's about it.

My guess is with all the bad press lately about aircraft falling out of the sky parents/packs don't wanna go near that with a 100 ft pole. Shame really, but that's how it goes I guess.
 
I was in the Scouts for about two months... the only badge I got was my Aviation badge! It's how I learned the phonetic alphabet.
 
When it comes to merit badges in the Boy Scouts of America, you can go "all in", or you can take the 'easy way'. Actually flying in an airplane is not a requirement. You can find the requirements here:

http://meritbadge.org/wiki/index.php/Aviation

Yesterday afternoon we did the pre-flight inspection, which satisfies one of the requirements from section two. The other requirement from section two we did was to go over how you read an aeronautical chart. It certainly not as glamorous as taking the boys flying, but they all really enjoyed doing the preflight yesterday. I let them all sit in the airplane and we talked about what everything is and what it does.

We ended up having nine boys, a scout master, an assistant scout master a dad that tagged along and me. All the boys were really interested and asked lots of questions. We were on the ramp about a hundred yards from 22R, and there was a guy in a 172 that did a half dozen laps in the pattern practicing T&G's. The boys all loved watching the plane come in to land. The boys (and the scout leaders) all got a kick out of what 'security' really looks like at most airports.

It was a fun time.
 
It's been several years, but I took a helped a troop out, and also took them up one at a time. Some of the kids were excited. I tried to make it as fun as possible, letting each of them take the controls and had them make subtle movements with each control.
 
My nephew got the aviation badge and could have done the flight at the time, but he waited until he and his family could get here (they live about 3.5 hours away by car) so I could take him on his first flight. My sister dropped him off at my airport, we did pre-flight and they left after we were in the air to head home. We landed at their local airport, I dropped him off with my other sister, hopped back in the plane and flew home. I touched down just a short while after they got home after their 3.5 hour drive.

He loved it, had a big smile on his face the entire time we were in the air. Took pictures with his phone and asked a lot of questions. I let him hold the controls to keep us straight and level for a little bit. His mom said he wouldn't stop talking about it for a day or two after they got home.
 
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