Aug 18, 2025 By Garrett Neese 4 min read

After close to a decade of Aviation Days, Richard Judy has seen any number of nervous children walking towards a small plane for their first time up in the air, their parents hanging back ready to film the milestone on their phones.

But he’s seen the excitement on their face once they land.

“Once they get up, they experience the magic of flight, and it’s ‘Can I go again? Can I go again?'” said Judy, the president of the nonprofit SOAR (Support Our Aviation Resources) of Greene County.

The latest batch of flying enthusiasts took to the skies Saturday at this year’s Aviation Day at the Greene County Airport in Waynesburg.

SOAR puts the program on each year. When they weren’t up in the air, people also got to look at historic planes and newer models.

Children between 8 and 17 received a free flight through the Experimental Aircraft Association Young Eagles program. Three other planes flew charitable rides, following FAA regulations that allow private planes to fly passengers for a fee if it goes to a charity.

The 15- to 20-minute flights take passengers north towards Rogersville, then back southeast before returning to the airport.

“It’s a good ride,” Judy said. “We’re not trying to give them flight instruction, just whet the appetite, teach them that flying is cool.”

Eventually, he hopes, some of the kids who went up for flights Saturday will pursue a career in aviation.

“It’s multifaceted: good, high-paying jobs and they can stay right here in Greene County,” he said.

The excitement generated by the Aviation Day flights has already resonated with the children. Three kids who took the Young Eagles flight at earlier Aviation Days have gone on to join the Young Eagles program themselves, Judy said.

Nine-year-old Maia Castillo of Jeanette might have started her own journey Saturday afternoon. Her grandfather has wanted her to be a pilot.

“I figured why not experience it firsthand to see if it’s something she’d be interested in for the future,” said her mother, Marelise Castillo.

And it also gave Maia a taste of being up in a plane if she decides to skydive one day, which she and her mother have talked about.

After landing, Maia said she thought being a pilot “would be fun.”

“I just like that in the sky, I can see all the mountains and the clouds,” she said.

When they weren’t flying, people also toured historic planes, such as the C-54 Spirit of Freedom, one of the “candy bombers” that dropped supplies on Berlin during the 1948-49 airlift.

“There’s so much history in it, you’re not even prepared for it,” said Lindsey Supensky of Masontown. “And then you walk in, and it’s like a little museum that flies. So cool. I feel like, around here in our area, it’s like a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.”

And there were newer models, like the Twin-Astir sailplane shown by Doug Jamison of Finleyville. Used to train new pilots, the plane is non-motorized, hitching a ride up via a tow by another plane.

Then it’s up to the trainee. If they run into trouble, the pilot will take back over long enough to show them what they were doing wrong and how to correct it, then let the trainee fly until it’s time to land.

One of Jamison’s friends, a Blue Angels pilot, told him it was “the purest form of flying.”

“You have no help,” Jamison said. “There’s no button you can push to start managing pitch up a little bit higher. If you’ve got a headwind, you’ve got to figure that out ahead of time. …The kids really like it, which I like.”

Andrew King gave flights throughout the day in his biplane Miss Marianna, a 1928 Travel Air E-4000. It had originally been used by a businessman in Kansas City, who used it as the Jazz Age equivalent of a Learjet.

King bought it in 2018, restoring it to flyable condition the next year. The Virginia resident flies it to shows around the country, and last month took it to the Wichita factory where it was built for the company’s centennial.

When people have the chance to fly in a plane built the year after Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, they get excited, King said.

“My very first customer this morning, after we landed, she said it was so wonderful, she cried,” he said. “People smile when they get out.”

What about the sky is so transformative?

It’s the freedom, Judy said.

“A mile of runway will take you anywhere in the world, whereas a mile of asphalt, it’ll only take you one mile,” he said.