Wisconsin Aviation Academy (WAA), is a 501(c)(3), located at the Southern Wisconsin Regional Airport between Janesville and Beloit.
WAA’s mission statement is “to provide unmatched opportunities for underrepresented area youth to learn planning, discipline, and communication skills while learning to fly for free or at a greatly reduced cost”. Cost is based on family size and income level. A percentage of up to 60% of the full fee is charged with the lowest income levels being free or almost free. “Underrepresented” does not only mean low income, but also minorities and females. Our program tries to have at least 50% - 75% of our enrollment consisting of underrepresented youth. This should not be misunderstood though. We take ALL income levels.
WAA has also partnered with Blackhawk Technical College’s Aviation Campus to offer a 4-Credit college course, “Private Pilot Ground School”. This class is one semester long and held in both the fall and spring semesters. Most high school students are eligible to apply for Youth Options to help with the tuition and books for this course. We highly recommend students take this in conjunction with our flight training. We also recommend they apply for Youth Options early by speaking with their guidance counselor at school. Youth Options will help to pay tuition and book costs for a class which is not offered at their High School.
Eligible students must be very close to the age of 16 with grade point averages 2.5 or above. The reason for the age requirement is a student pilots’ first goal is to solo (fly the plane alone). FAA regulations require a person to be 16 years of age for Solo flight. The end goal for our students is to receive their Private Pilot License from an FAA Examiner. We get them there!
Our Private Pilot Training Program requires students to be scheduled a minimum of twice a week with our Certified Flight Instructor (CFI). Our week runs Monday through Sunday. Each lesson is scheduled in 2-hour increments. The flying time is usually one hour, give or take a couple tenths of an hour. The rest of the time is spent on preflight briefing and post flight briefing along with logbook entries and discussion of their next lesson.
The application process includes returning the completed Introduction Application completed by the student and parents or guardians to WAA. Once we have had time to review the application, we would set up a meeting with both the student & parents to discuss the program in depth along with answering any questions. Once that has been conducted you will be notified of their formal acceptance to the program along with setting up their initial meeting with the Instructor and scheduling their flight times.
If you have any other questions or concerns, please call WAA at 608.754.5405 between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
