Summer in the Skies

By Dean Damato

Like most kids, I can’t wait until summer. You can’t beat racing to the ice cream truck, enjoying lazy days by the pool and making new friends at camp. My camp experience this year will be a little different, though. While my friends are playing soccer or swimming in lakes, I’ll be living the life of a U.S. Navy aviator on a simulated aircraft carrier.

Before I talk more about that, I should probably tell you a little about myself. My name is Dean Damato and I’m a pretty normal 13-year-old. Some of my favorite things to do include playing baseball, hanging out with my younger brother, seeing movies and going into the city with my family.

I’m also obsessed with aviation. With my parents, it was probably inevitable. They’re both pilots – dad flies for the airlines and mom works in general aviation – so it won’t surprise you that airplanes have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. For example, one of my favorite early memories is having my fourth birthday party at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.

As I’ve grown up, I’ve been lucky enough to take part in more exciting aviation opportunities. Some of these are educational, like when mom brings me to her office on “Take Your Child to Work Day” to get an inside look at how business aviation operates throughout

the country. Others are hands-on, like the “Aerospace 4 Kids” summer camp I’ve attended the last two years.

Camp really lets me dive into the world of aviation, and I love every minute! Through a bunch of awesome hands-on activities, including building model rockets, we get to learn about aerospace science, airplane instruments and navigation, and what goes into running an airport. At the end of the week, we even get to go up in a Young Eagles flight with an experienced pilot. It’s hard to put into words how cool it was to see my home state from thousands of feet in the air.

The last two years of camp made me want to dive even deeper into aviation. So this year, I applied and got accepted to the National Flight Academy “Ambition” program in Pensacola, FL. It sounds like an airplane-lover’s dream – my campmates and I will be staying in a 100,000 square foot simulated aircraft carrier where we’ll work in teams to use STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills to accomplish

missions. We’re going to learn how real U.S. Navy aviators live and work, even using some of the same flight simulators they train on. I can’t wait!

My life in aviation has been an adventure so far and I’m so excited to see where it goes from here. I’ve been lucky to have two parents who introduced me to aviation early and encouraged me to keep learning about it. But you don’t have to be in a flying family to take to the skies. From Young Eagles flights to the Civil Air Patrol, there are a lot of opportunities for young people to get involved with aviation from an early age.

Beyond how cool flying is (and it’s really cool), there are a lot of aerospace jobs that will need to be filled in the upcoming decades. My generation still has a lot of fun summer days before we get to that point, but it’s exciting to know I can someday make a living doing what I love.

It’s crazy to think that human flight has only existed for about a hundred years. For all of human history, people have looked at the skies and wondered what it would be like to fly like birds. Well, now we know – and it’s as incredible as our ancestors probably imagined. Here’s to another exciting summer in the skies!

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Here are just a few places offering aviation education programs for middle and high school students:

• EAA Flight Experiences: Young Eagles www.eaa.org

• Civil Air Patrol Youth Program www.gocivilairpatrol.com

• Women in Aviation’s Girls in Aviation Day www.wai.org/giad

• NBAA Careers in Business Aviation Day www.nbaa.org/students