Hello everyone! It’s Nia. I know it’s been forever since you heard from me, but I’m really excited to tell you all about my amazing first-time experience at EAA AirVenture and GirlVenture!
First, I want to start by talking a bit about what GirlVenture is and how it works before diving a bit deeper into it. Basically, GirlVenture is an all-female aviation summer day camp for around 80 high schoolers. It takes place at the world’s largest annual aviation gathering and fly-in airshow called AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Oshkosh is the home of the Experimental Aircraft Association, or EAA, which is the world’s biggest aviation community for recreational flying (as in people who own their own airplanes). More than 700,000 people attend each year and more than 10,000 aircraft arrive during the week! Many people choose to camp literally under the wings of their airplanes in tents!
At the GirlVenture camp, everyone is separated into groups of eight, which is then led by two mentors (also women) with experience in the aviation industry. We got together for four straight days and did a bunch of different activities related to aviation, like flights, tours, workshops, and mentoring sessions. It wasn’t an overnight camp, but they did provide breakfast and lunch for us every day, as well as color coordinated shirts for each day of the camp! Now that you have a bit of an understanding of what GirlVenture is, I want to start by talking a bit about my top three favorite things I got to do over the duration of the camp, beginning with a ride in a very unique airplane…
People, let me introduce you to the Ford Tri-Motor!
My First Ride in a Ford Tri-Motor
The Trimotor is a little over a hundred years old, with the first one being constructed in 1925, and serving as the main commercial aircraft for the next decade. However, what makes it so unique is it has not one, but three propellors! This is its most recognizable feature, and part of what made the ride so interesting to me, as I’ve never ridden in a three-prop plane before. For the flight, I had to wake up at the crisp time of 5:30 AM and be at the airport by 6:30, where we then proceeded to the flight line. Since I was in group one of ten, we got to go first, so here are a few pictures from the flight:
In this photo you can see one of the three propellors of this plane, which I was lucky enough to get a seat directly next to.
Featured above is the cockpit, where the two pilots start each engine individually, starting with the left side motor, then the nose one, and finally the right.
Here is another shot of the right prop, which is very firmly attached with several different struts to the wing and main body.
My final photo from the ride is of this little bay on a lake. What? I forgot to mention seaplanes have an entire different area to park? Whoops, well, this is the EAA seaplane base, which when we got to later visit and it had over 50 seaplanes!
Seeing AirVenture From Above
My second favorite thing I did was getting to go up in the Air Traffic Control tower while the airshow was taking place, which offered a lovely view of the entire grounds, and really gave me a good sense of just how big AirVenture is. During part of the camp, we got an hour of free exploration time with our groups at the airshow. Since one of my mentors worked for mission control in Houston for NASA, she of course wanted to go to the NASA tent, where we got to see a real astronaut talk! We also got to see some very iconic and vintage aircraft, like the Gee Bee on the ground, as well as many in the air.
Here is a photo of the control tower at Wittman field, which as the banner suggests, becomes the busiest tower and airport in the entire world for one week of every year!
This is a photo I took of the aforementioned Gee Bee, which I think is pretty neat looking.
Above are 16 planes flying in perfect formation, which my dad commented looks like something right out of WWII. I also want to compliment the pilots on their amazing skills, as they were flying in super close quarters with very exact precision while strong crosswinds were trying to knock them every which way.
This is my favorite photo I took during the entire airshow, which I think has a certain poetry to it to have both a bird (the original masters of flight!) and six warbirds in formation above it.
Finally, here is a selfie of me with the original entry gate to the airshow, which has become an iconic symbol of AirVenture.
Exploring Flight Colleges
Next, on my third day of the camp, we got to hop on a bus to an area known as College Park. This area has all the representatives of different notable flight colleges from around the country. Once we arrived, we set off with our groups and started to interrogate—I mean politely question—the people at all the different stands.
One thing I enjoyed a lot about this activity was asking the same question to every flight college, which was, “what makes your school different or unique from other flight colleges?” and getting nearly the same answers from all of them. One overarching theme was you would get a reduced ATP certification, which basically means a lower amount of flight hours that you need for airlines to start hiring you (only 1,000 vs. the standard 1,500). Though a few of the other answers I got were also interesting. For example, Embry-Riddle said their name can open a lot of doors for getting a job, while Purdue said because of how close the airfield is to the school.
Why GirlVenture Meant So Much to Me
Finally, I want to get serious a bit and talk about what this camp really meant to me. The statistics don’t lie: less than 10% of all pilots in the United States are female. This can sometimes feel incredibly alienating and lonely, and I know it definitely has for me. As much as I love my glider club, I am the only woman in it, and I’ve definitely caught myself wishing I could have a female friend who was interested in aviation. Then my first aviation camp earlier this summer didn’t really help, as there were only 8 girls out of 60 campers. Then, with that group of girls I didn’t really connect with any of them, and started genuinely questioning if aviation was meant for me if this is what women in the industry were like. Then I attended GirlVenture.
Suddenly, all around me were girls who were my age, and just like me. While some may have wanted to be engineers, or go fly fighter jets in the Air Force, and the fact most of us had never met each other before the camp, all of my group mates were incredibly supportive and encouraging of each other, which was very touching to both see and be a part of. Don’t even get me started on the mentors.
I truly want to thank both my group’s mentors, Izzy and Mina, for being so inspiring by deciding to volunteer to continue to help encourage and support all of us. On top of that, I also got to meet and hear from many different women who had made it in aviation, including Eileen, who was an astronaut, as well as Xyla Foxlin, who continues to pioneer and lead the charge on both mental health rights in aviation and girls in STEM. If you would like to check her out, here is a link to her YouTube channel.
Overall, GirlVenture really made me feel part of a community, and feel much less alone, especially when we took the WomenVenture picture featured at the end of this blog post, in which every woman in it is somehow involved in aviation and supportive of encouraging the next generation (me!) to thrive in the future. This camp reminded me again of just how loving and supportive the aviation community can be, and I’m deeply grateful to both my parents for being so supportive of me by sending me there, of every woman who helped make that camp able to happen, and to the EAA for doing their part in trying to change the industry.
