Thrill of The First Flight, the nonprofit organization founded by Vietnam War fighter pilot and retired corporate aviator John Ratcliff, will host brief flights for "future aviators" in third through 12th grades Oct. 11 as part of a family event at Statesboro-Bulloch County Airport.

Although the flights themselves remain free of charge, the First Flight organizers this year are requiring online registration of each child or teen and a $10 registration fee, which will be refunded in the form of tokens for food and beverage from food trucks during the event. In other words, it's non-refundable for no-shows, as an encouragement for families who sign up to show up.

The event is scheduled to start at 9 a.m. Thrill of The First Flight, a 501(c)3 organization, interprets "third through 12th grades" as approximately ages 8-19.

For participating youth and their accompanying adults, the organizers promise a meet-and-greet with pilots and insight into aviation careers. Electronic flight simulators and some aircraft for static tours will be available for those who prefer to stay on the ground.

Bringing announcements to both the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners and Statesboro City Council during their meetings last week, Ratcliff explained reasons for the deposit requirement. He also explained a number of other things about the event and announced a competition for one young participant to obtain more flight hours.

"Most of the kids that come out are flying for the first time in their life," he said, first explaining the organization's name.

Ratcliff and fellow volunteers, including several private pilots and a retired airline industry professional, hosted a similar event, or two, at the Statesboro-Bulloch Airport in 2024, first attempting it on a near-washout day in May when a crowd turned out but so did threatening clouds and drizzle. After issuing a raincheck to about 125 youngsters, the First Flight team held a more successful, fair weather-favored flight day in mid-June 2024.

The $10 deposit

"Unfortunately, this year when you sign up we're going to require $10 (because) it happened in Savannah and it happened here, we had 125 sign up and 60 of the people that signed up showed up, so somebody is signing up and not intending to come," Ratcliff said last week. "So when you come to the event, we'll give you the $10 back as a credit for the food trucks that we're going to have available, so again there's no cost to you."

Other rules are fairly self-explanatory, such as the minimum age for plane rides.

"The reason it's third grade is because most of the time, if you're in the second you can't see out of the airplane anyway," he told City Council.

As noted on the website, www.firstflightga.org, participating children are to be accompanied "at all times," meaning while they are on the ground at the airport, by an adult who arrives with them.

"One of the requirements is, you can't drop your kid off," Ratcliff said, eliciting some understanding laughs from city officials. "You've got to come with them, for two reasons: One, I don't want to supervise them, and two, you've got to sign a liability statement for us."

But the adults who accompany the youth in the air will be the volunteer pilots, not the children's parents, grands or other family. The webpage states, "The flights are for the children only, no adults." It adds that each child "must also be able to get in and out of the airplane unassisted."

Aviation professionals on-site will "talk to the parents and the kids, because some of the parents might need jobs, and there are a lot of jobs in aviation in the area," Ratcliff said.

But the "future aviators," or children and teens who take the flights, will be given a card to have stamped or signed by one of the aviation professionals, to prove that they visited one for information on careers in aviation.

Besides food tokens, each child or teen who participates will receive a flight wristband, an event T-shirt and a youth flight certificate, according to the website.

Static displays will include planes but also some ground vehicles, such as possibly an Emergency Medical Service ambulance, he said, having spoken to the county commissioners that morning.

Flying hours contest

Ratcliff also announced that the First Flight group, special for this year, will award 16 hours of flight instruction to "some kid from Bulloch County," or at least "attending a Bulloch County school." Certain requirements of the Federal Aviation Administration must be met, he said, also referring to the prize as "16 hours flight time."

Look for more details of this later, but one requirement will be for contestants to supply a video of why they want to be a pilot, "and do it in three minutes or less," he said.

John H. Ratcliff, originally from Texas, became a licensed pilot during his junior year in college under a Vietnam War-era program in which the Air Force paid for flight school for young pilots. He then served through the 1968-69 heat of the war, flying F-4 Phantom jets in 207 combat missions.

Attaining the rank of major, he remained in the Air Force on active duty for five and a half years and in the reserves for another eight.

Ratcliff flew corporate planes, including Gulfstream jets, for Ford Motor Company from 1973 to 2005 and was in charge of the corporation's Flight Department, based in Detroit, for 10 years until his retirement in 2005. 

He now lives in Savannah, where the group he founded has also held some First Flight events, as he also did previously at the Waycross-Ware County Airport in association with the Black Pilots of America.