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Wednesday, September 21, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
The Nugget Newspaper Crossword
By Jacqueline E. Mathews, Tribune News Service
photo by steve kadel
Flight science teacher Sherry Yeager helps students Mya St. Clair, left, and
luka perle locate a visual aid on a flight section chart.
YEAGER: Class
prepares students
for pilot’s license
Continued from page 3
this month.
“I was in shock,” said
Yeager, a 23-year teaching
veteran.
Last week, one of her
classes spent an hour learning
about the flight world’s acro-
nyms, and studying visual
flight rule section charts
showing detailed terrain the
way a hiking map would.
Yeager strolled from desk
to desk monitoring students’
work. She leaned over and
pointed to one detail on a
boy’s chart, saying, “In the
middle of nowhere, that would
be a really good visual aid.”
Her students have a variety
of reasons for taking Flight
Science. Delsie McCrystal, a
freshman, said it “would be
cool” to have a pilot’s license,
adding that she knows people
who own airplanes.
Her friend, freshman
Sydney Hummel, simply
thought it would be an inter-
esting class. But Luka Perle,
a sophomore, said he hopes
to have a flight-related career.
Perle always is taking flight
lessons at Sisters Airport and
said, “I thought this class
would help with that.”
Sophomore May St. Clair
isn’t sure she’ll go for a
license, but is taking the class
because it’s a good opportu-
nity. “A lot of schools don’t
have this class,” she said.
Principal Joe Hosang
agreed it’s unusual. It began,
in part, from another teacher’s
interest in flight and the con-
tacts he had at the local air-
port, Hosang said.
The principal hopes that
flight students eventually can
get college credit from Central
Oregon Community College
that will help them toward a
license.
“There’s a lot of interest
(in the course),” he said.
During a class, Yeager held
a model airplane aloft to dem-
onstrate three important prin-
ciples of flight —roll, pitch
and yaw.
“It’s a combination of all
three of those that allows the
airplane to turn,” she said.
For students who have
the interest, Yeager said, the
Young Eagle program also
run through Sisters High can
lead to scholarships that pay
for ground-instruction costs.
By the end of the school year,
students should be prepared to
take the private pilot’s knowl-
edge test which is the first
step toward a license, Yeager
said.
She described the course
as a work in progress, but said
everyone is working together
to make it a valuable experi-
ence. Students will get to ride
along soon on a flight from
Sisters Eagle Airport as part
of the course.
While there’s some math
involved in the instruction,
plus the onslaught of all those
flight acronyms, Yeager’s
classroom also hints at the
romance of flight.
A photo of Amelia Earhart
is posted on the classroom
wall, with a quote from her:
“You haven’t seen a tree until
you’ve seen its shadow from
the sky.”
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photo by steve kadel
Sherry Yeager asks freshman Dillon King about a detail on a flight section
chart during her Flight Science class last week.