"The
Voice of Public Benefit Flying"
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"The
Voice of Public Benefit Flying"
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National Public Benefit Flying 2007 Awards Programpresented by The National Aeronautic Association
in association with the Air Care AllianceWinners Announced for the 2007 national public benefit flying awards. These awards were established in 2003 to honor those individuals and organizations that otherwise would go unrecognized for what they love doing most - “flying to help others.” The 2007 awards were presented at the "Above and Beyond" ceremony in the LBJ Room of the United States Capitol Building on September 17, 2007. Note: our 2008 awards program will begin on May 10, 2008. Please visit our awards program page on or after that date. Complete information is available in the Press Release copied below. National Aeronautic Association: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 10, 2007 The awards were created in 2003 to honor volunteer pilots, individuals, groups and organizations engaged in flying to help others. A volunteer for the Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps in association with Wings of Hope and the President of Wings of Mercy each received an award for Outstanding Achievement in Support of Public Benefit Flying. Wings of Mercy has flown over 2,745 missions since Founder and President Peter VandenBosch’s first flight with the nonprofit in 1991. Award winner VandenBosch, an Army Air Corps veteran and former business owner, has dedicated his retirement to helping people with low incomes fly to obtain needed medical treatment. With a volunteer fleet of more than 90 airplanes and 300 pilots Wings of Mercy now serves patients in Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin. VandenBosch, now 84, has personally flown more than 211 missions and he is a tireless fundraiser for the organization. Terrence Trapnell is a volunteer bush pilot with the Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps (RAM), which in association with Wings of Hope operates a free ambulance “Jungle 911” medevac service in Guyana. Trapnell has flown more than 475 emergency patients since 2004, and also ferries doctors and dentists into remote Amazonian villages to treat indigenous peoples in the poorest country in South America. Over and above his volunteer pilot duties, Trapnell, on his own initiative, has fitted hundreds of villagers with eyeglasses and also serves as the onsite coordinator for the new Guyana Women’s Health Program. “He has become not only a highly experienced and life-saving bush pilot, he is an indispensable logistics manager for RAM in Guyana,” said Karen Wilson, Executive Director of the Remote Area Medical Foundation. A LightHawk conservation pilot received this year’s Distinguished Volunteer Pilot award. Chuck Schroll donates more than 150 hours of flight annually in the United States, Mexico, and Central America as a volunteer pilot for LightHawk, assisting more than 100 conservation partners in protecting threatened wildlife habitat and endangered species. Schroll has worked to survey and protect national parks in Costa Rica, monarch butterfly populations in Mexico and giant whale sharks off Belize’s barrier reef. In addition to all that conservation work, Schroll also flies medical missions every month to Baja California, Mexico, with the Flying Samaritans, another volunteer organization, whose pilots and medical teams serve needy areas of Mexico. A Civil Air Patrol radar expert has been named this year’s Distinguished Volunteer Second Lt. Guy Loughridge is a member of the Colorado Wing of the Civil Air Patrol and he volunteers 75 to 90 days annually providing radar analysis on his home computer -- using a software program he designed -- to help locate and direct search and rescue teams to likely crash sites. Over the past 11 years, through his work with the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, Loughridge has assisted in more than 200 search-and-rescue missions, making 72 radar finds and contributing to the rescue of 24 plane crash survivors. The Public Benefit Flying Teamwork Award is being presented to the partnership of Wings of Hope and Fundacion AeroAmazonica. Humanitarian aviation charities Wings of Hope and Fundacion AeroAmazonica began their collaboration in 2000 to better serve impoverished indigenous peoples in the Amazon region of Ecuador. The partnership now uses six aircraft to provide humanitarian and air ambulance services to 200 villages. It also manages scholarship grants, micro business loans, health outreach programs, and chicken and pig farms which provide villages a sustainable protein supply. All these recipients will be honored at “Above and Beyond,” a ceremony and reception in the Lyndon B. Johnson room of the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on the 17th of September. The National Aeronautic Association is a non-profit membership organization devoted to fostering opportunities to participate fully in aviation activities and to promoting public understanding of the importance of aviation and space flight to the United States. NAA is the caretaker of several major aviation awards, and certifies all world and national aviation records set in the United States. For information, visit www.naa.aero. The Air Care Alliance is a nonprofit membership association supporting the work of dozens of volunteer-based charitable organizations whose members fly to help others. ACA is devoted to fostering, enhancing, and promoting public benefit flying in the United States and other countries. For information, visit www.aircareall.org. ### end ### To see the NAA 2007 nomination details and awards criteria that were used for the 2007 awards please visit our 2007 Call for Nominations Page. Note that the nominations have closed. See the 2008 Award Program Page for information on the 2008 Program.
Other Related Links:To read more about prior awards and see photos of each event, held in the U.S. Capitol Building, visit our Public Benefit Flying Awards Page.
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