Young Eagles Flight Story

October 22, 2015 - Back in September, I was on my way back from the International Seaplane Fly-In in Greenville, Maine and was waiting at the Minneapolis Airport for a flight to Bemidji, Minnesota. While waiting, I met a young man who was an exchange student on his way to Bemidji. Temka Kherlen, (known as “Timmy” to us) had been flying for 20 hours from his home town of Ulaanbataar, which is the capital of Mongolia.

He must have seen the Seaplane Pilots Association logo on my shirt, because we quickly started to talk about aviation. Shortly after that meeting, our local chapter, EAA 1397, gave Temka his first flight in a Cessna 150, flown by Jerry Greuel, EAA 72997. The event was recorded on video and is now on YouTube.  Temka sent the YouTube address to his family back in Mongolia so they could see what he was doing.

Jerry told the entire airport that Temka was a “natural” at flying. As it turned out, Temka had been practicing on a flight simulator program on his computer.

A few weeks later, his host father, Jared Carrol of Soloway, Minnesota, took Temka to visit the University of North Dakota (UND) Aerospace center in Grand Forks, North Dakota. When he got back to Minnesota, he decided to join the Bemidji chapter of the Civil Air Patrol.

This was probably the best EAA Young Eagles Flight the chapter has given. We see a young man from halfway around the world starting a career in aviation. And isn’t that what the Young Eagles Program is for? We did good!