400 young people have now completed flight training with the help of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Ray Aviation Scholarship. The program, which provides scholarships of up to $11,000 toward flight training expenses, is open to EAA chapter-nominated student pilots ages 15 to 19. According to EAA, the pilot certificate completion rate for Ray scholarship recipients is 81 percent.
“Many aspiring pilots fall short of their goal due to the cost of flight training, so EAA working with the Ray Foundation helps relieve some of the financial pressure and make the goal of becoming a pilot even more accessible for future generations,” said Rick Larsen, EAA vice president of communities and member programming. “The high completion rate of our scholars demonstrates how this program has a direct impact on growing the aviation community.”
First announced in 2018, the EAA Ray Aviation Scholarship program is funded by the Ray Foundation and managed by EAA. The program has provided more than 730 scholarships to date with approximately 240 recipients currently in training. EAA received $1.8 million for the program this year.
Further information about the EAA Ray Aviation Scholarship program is available at EAA.org/RayScholarship.
