A Junior Pilot Gets Her Wings
Andrews Program Treats Ill Children to a Day on Base
|
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
Sunday, July 26, 2009
For one day, Kayla Kiley was a fighter pilot with the D.C. Air National Guard, a member of the Air Force Reserve's Air Refueling Wing and manned a Navy Prowler.
On Thursday, the 10-year-old girl from Waldorf became the first female and the 10th person to participate in the Pilot for a Day program at Andrews Air Force Base.
For the past five years, the program has brought seriously and terminally ill children to the base, giving them the VIP treatment during a full day of activities.
Kayla, who is in her second year of remission with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in her colon, has brain cancer. Her most recent MRI showed that brain surgery was successful, but she has three more sessions of chemotherapy, said her mother, Kathleen Bradshaw-Kiley.
Her mother said she was amazed at Kayla's itinerary Thursday. "It didn't give Kayla time to focus on her sickness at all. . . . It took her mind off of her sickness and gave her more encouragement."
The day began with a swearing-in ceremony by Col. Rusty Muncy, the 459th Operations Group commander. Kayla wore a flight suit and promised to ask questions, smile and have as much fun "as military regulations allow."
Gen. Jeff Johnson, the 113th wing commander for the D.C. Air National Guard, complimented Kayla's blue flight cap adorned with four silver stars. The general noted with a smile that he only had one star on his cap.
Kayla and her family were whisked off to the 121st Fighter Squadron, where she practiced loops and landings in the F-16 flight simulator to the giggles of younger family members who crowded around her.
There was also an up-close-and-personal tour of an F-16 fighter jet with Kayla's name affixed under the cockpit window -- just like all of the other planes she visited.
Pilots and other airmen switched the patches on Kayla's flight suit so they matched theirs. Several units gave her coins reserved for mission-qualified pilots and crew members.
Navy reservists let Kayla climb into a Prowler cockpit, where her name was embossed in pink. But first, Petty Officer Kelly Reid helped her put on 60 pounds of gear required for a Navy pilot's flight.
Lunch was held aboard the 459th Air Refueling Wing's tanker plane, where Kayla, her cousins and sister ran around inside the plane wearing headsets after eating pizza and crab balls.
