Flight has fascinated humans since the beginning of time. From the Wright brothers’ early form of a plane with a homemade engine and wooden frame to Neil Armstrong stepping foot on the moon, aviation has been a driving force for human exploration and connectivity. Now, the field faces a growing shortage of pilots. According to the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, it is estimated that there will need to be 5,400 more commercial pilots in the U.S. alone by 2032. We will have to rely on our generation, students who are willing to go through the rigorous schooling and high costs of flight schools to fly us across the globe and deliver our much needed two day shipping services. Senior Kasen Pepperman and his peers at NHS are ready to fill that void.

Pepperman runs cross country and track, and recently has started an aviation class through the Noblesville High School internship program in partnership with The Pursuit Institute internship offered for seniors. Through this program, students from almost every school in the county are hoping to learn the skills necessary to succeed as pilots. Pepperman didn’t always want to be a pilot, but found his passion early in middle school after getting up into the air for the first time.

“It’s a weird story for me because growing up I never had an interest in aviation.” Pepperman said, “One day one of my neighbors said to me, ‘I got my pilot’s license, do you want to go?’ I was in sixth grade and when I got in the plane and he took me up, all I was thinking was, ‘this is the best thing I’ve experienced in my life, I want to be here all the time, not in some boring desk job.’” 

NHS’s internship program, which Dan Nicholson has led for four years, partners with The Pursuit Institute to provide students like Pepperman who are interested in aviation as a career with the real world experience and knowledge that they’ll need to pursue a degree.

“In our case most of our students are interested in aviation, but have no academic background, whereas the students in this class are actually being instructed by pilots, they’re preparing to be able to pass certification tests for aviation.” Nicholson said.

Christopher Barlow is a flight instructor and pilot, as well as a recent graduate from Indiana States aviation program. He teaches the class with The Pursuit Institute and can speak firsthand to the effect that prior knowledge and experience can have for a high schooler entering into this new world.

“I knew nothing. My father was a pilot but I only saw him do so much, and so that’s why when you go into that aviation field a lot of people don’t know [what they’re doing] and that’s why the success rate is very low in aviation. That’s why we want these high schoolers to be prepared for the next step.”

Pepperman can see these results first hand after a few weeks. As he looks towards college and next steps in this field, the cushion of knowledge he is gaining can set him and others in the program above their peers. This is not an opportunity open to only Noblesville students, but high school seniors from all across Hamilton county are all coming to NHS for the shared goal of gaining knowledge.

“You are meeting a lot of people that are from not just Noblesville but around Hamilton county,” Pepperman said. “There’s only six Noblesville students so we’re getting the experience with everyone in the county, seeing what they are experiencing in doing this. This is new for them and new for us, everyone is coming in here expecting to take out the same thing because we all have the same goals here, to go to an airline.” Nicholson sees this shared goal as a huge driving factor for getting students that are interested in this program as soon as they can. Nicholson, while working in the internship program has had multiple students sent to Tom Wood Aviation, but they only take a select few, limiting the opportunity of others. Now they have an avenue to pursue their dreams.

“We encourage kids that come to us to enroll in classes like what they offer at the pursuit institute simply because it gets them farther along in the process of the ultimate goal which is to become a pilot,” Nicholson said.

Similarly, for this reason Barlow sees what he and the other teachers do as critical, especially with the shortage of pilots in recent years.

“It is not just understanding that aviation is gatekept, but aviation is not the typical doctor or lawyer, engineer, physicist, mathematician, this is something different that we want more people to be a part of so we can combat the shortage so we can bring the world together in a whole different way.” Barlow said.

For other students and many like him, Pepperman will use this opportunity as a boost into the field that he’s been pursuing for years. 

“I want to be in a plane.” Pepperman said. “That’s all I want to do is fly, see places, travel the world.”