In the late 1940s military schools lost popularity with a war-weary nation. And their cachet changed from an exemplary preparation for a college education to that of a repository for discipline problems, a generally unfair and untrue label assigned by a changing society.
Today, approximately 40 military schools survive and their guiding goal is college preparation in the classic sense. Few, if any, still teach Latin or Greek, but they still imbue students with self-discipline and responsibility, and their curricula are anchored to subjects that will prepare their students for successful careers ? and at least one school that includes aviation.
St. John?s Northwestern Military Academy (SJNMA) is a college preparatory boarding school for boys in grades 7 to 12. Founded in 1884, its 150-acre campus is located just west of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the town of Delafield. Off and on over the decades SJNMA has offered aviation to its cadets, but always as an extra curricular activity. That changed two years ago when SJNMA introduced its for-credit aviation science program at the start of the 1997-98 school year.
Establishing any new program takes the work of many, but often a single person motivates their work. Scott Thomas is the aviation science program?s motivator and classroom instructor. Thomas, a retired U.S. Navy commander who flew the E-2 Hawkeye (a carrier-borne AWACS), saw the nation?s need for pilots and knew that one sure way to attract them was to expose young people to aviation early in their schooling. Once attracted, Thomas wanted to ensure that students would be prepared for their collegiate aviation education, and that meant the SJNMA program had to confer academic credit.
?When measured by time and money, education is expensive at any level,? Thomas says. ?As educators, it?s our responsibility to use these limited resources efficiently ? and to the best benefit of our students. We could have created this program as an extra curricular activity, and the students would have received the same aviation education more or less. As a structured class with specific requirements and goals, however, the students see it as an academic stepping stone to a career ? and so do the colleges to which they apply.?
SJNMA?s aviation science program is, essentially, a private pilot training course, and students are expected to meet specific goals, including earning their certificate. ?This is important because many aviation colleges and universities give credit for the certificates and ratings incoming students hold,? Thomas says. ?This preparation puts our graduates a step or two ahead of their collegiate peers, and it could help them defray their college expenses because it puts them a certificate closer to becoming a CFI ? and being paid for the instruction they give.?
That preparation doesn?t stop with a private pilot certificate. One cadet, Ahmad Nabilisi, a 17-year-old from Palatine, Illinois, earned his private last year and is now working on his instrument rating, Thomas says. A number of the cadets enrolled in the program this year are juniors, which means they can become instrument-rated private pilots by the time they graduate.
Aviation science is divided into classroom and flight instruction. Cadets can take the classroom section at any time, but because of the FAA?s minimum solo age they cannot start flight training until they are 16 years old.
Thomas is aviation science?s classroom teacher (he also teaches history, a subject he taught to midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy). The final exam his students must take is the FAA private pilot knowledge test (and how they score on it plays a large part in computing their grades). Thomas?s class goes well beyond what students must know to pass the FAA test. It meets five times a week, and after observing several sessions and examining the class outline, Thomas?s class would teach students more than they would need to know to become commercial pilots.
Besides holding flight, instrument, and ground instructor ratings, Thomas is a practicing airframe and powerplant mechanic with an inspection authorization. He owns a 1947 Bellanca 14-13-2 Cruisair Sr., and it, and many of its parts, are hands-on visual aids in class. And students have taken a number of field trips to the different air traffic control facilities in the greater Milwaukee area. ?Becoming a pilot takes more than good stick and rudder skills,? Thomas says. ?In commercial aviation, the pilot is just one player on a team, and if the team is to be successful ? safe ? each player must know what the other members of the team are doing.?
Last year 10 students enrolled in aviation science. This year?s enrollment is 22. Many more applied, but 22 students are all Thomas can now accommodate. (SJNMA has just completed a new classroom building that includes a purpose-built aviation classroom with room for a flight training device. If the school can find another qualified aviation educator, the enrollment can expand to meet the demand.) To keep the class size manageable, half of the cadets are in class and the other half are flying.
Spring City Aviation (SCA) teaches the cadets to fly at the Waukesha County Airport, about 10 miles east of SJNMA?s campus. As they do in the classroom, the cadets receive an above average education. SCA?s instructors are young, but they are enthusiastic, motivated, and say they want to do nothing more than teach. The school?s standard is perfection, and the instructors work with the students to achieve it.
Learning to make good decisions is a part of SCA?s training program, and the students make their first decision before their first flight ? which airplane will they learn to fly, a Cessna 150, a Piper Cherokee, or the tailwheel Citabria? The cadets are about evenly split between the nosedraggers and the taildragger.
Without an inquiry, Chief Flight Instructor Brain Behrens says the cadets are a joy to teach. ?They are motivated to the maximum, and I wish all students showed up for their lessons as well prepared as the cadets do. When you speak, they listen, and they are never at a loss for questions.?
The cadets work hard, Thomas says, and the St. John?s Northwestern recognizes their achievements. When a cadet solos, SJNMA?s president presents a set of wings to the pilot during the noon meal ? and before the entire cadet corps, which numbers more than 330 boys.
?Some people say that flying isn?t as exciting or alluring as it once was, but you?d never convince him of that,? Thomas says, pointing to one of his students. Scott Buerstatte of Libertyville, Illinois was the first in his class to solo. A 17-year-old senior, this is his first year at SJNMA, and he enrolled for one reason ? to take aviation science. It doesn?t matter that his younger brother, Craig, a sophomore and three-year cadet, outranks him in the cadet corps.
?I?ve always been interested in the aviation and the military, and my senior year was my last chance to get a taste of both of them, to see if they were what I really wanted to do,? Scott says. ?I?d never flown before, and no one in my family flies, so I figured it would be better to take the chance of wasting a year of tuition here to see if I liked flying than it would be to waste four years of college tuition.?
Has it been a waste? ?I?m hooked on flying,? Scott says. ?I?m learning to fly in the Citabria because I read that learning to fly a taildragger makes you a better pilot, and I believe it. I flew yesterday, the crosswind was gusting to 20 knots, and I thought ?Oh, my God.? But all the instructors here challenge you to do your best. I was sweating up a storm, but I used everything they?d taught me, and the takeoffs and landings went great.?
Scott?s smile of accomplishment beams almost as brightly as the silver wings on his uniform, glinting in the sun. He says he?ll fly for a living, but he?s not sure for whom. ?I?ve thought about the military and the airlines, but I don?t know enough about them yet to make a decision,? he says. ?All I know is that I want to fly. Besides, my next step is college.? He?s applied to the service academies, but Scott is hedging his bets by investigating civilian schools, including Southern Illinois University, Lewis University, Purdue, the University of North Dakota, and Western Michigan University.
Where he ends up flying really isn?t important right now, Scott says. But where he started is, because he will measure the college he?ll attend against St. John?s Northwestern?s aviation science program. ?I love it,? he says of the program. ?It?s the best thing I?ve ever done. It?s my sport, my only activity.?
