The one-week camp was hosted by the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals (OBAP) and sponsored by Delta Air Lines and held at Delta’s world headquarters in Atlanta. Friday, July 23, hundreds of family and friends of the campers came out in force to celebrate their graduation from the intense classes.
“We take youngsters from around the country 14–18 years old and we give them a healthy dose of aviation experience and exposure,“ said Delta pilot Michael Gaillard, the general manager of OBAP’s ACE program. “[What] we wanted to do is … let [those] who have a general interest in aviation come to the camp and let them see more [of] what they [can] expect. From that, we hope to generate an interest in aerospace. Most of them leave here very anxious, very eager to learn more about aviation.”
The ACE camps have been put on by OBAP since 1989 and have grown to 26 such programs in cities across the country.
One of the highlights of the program is the “Delta Dream Flight” for which Delta charters a Boeing 757 and takes the campers to an aviation museum in another city. In the past they’ve flown to Washington, D.C., Houston, Dayton, Ohio, and Pensacola, Fla. This year, the students flew to and took a tour of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The ultimate purpose of the program is to expose young people to exciting, high-paying careers in occupations that they may have previously felt was out of their realm of possibility.
“I think that sometimes the kids thinks it’s unattainable,” Gaillard says. “And if we’re able to let them see our background, where we came from, and see how we got started and give them compelling stories and let them realize they are not as far behind as they think they are. And they are really on track to doing something successful [in] careers in aviation and aerospace.” –terry shropshire
