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U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Sean Quillin carefully
navigated his UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter above a crowd of
wind-swept high school kids. Below him was the wide open gridiron of
Emerald Ridge High School's football field.
The students
belong to the school's aviation program and Emerald Ridge, located
in Puyallup, Washington, is one of the few high schools within the
state that has an aviation program for their students. Students who
have a strong interest in being pilots have the opportunity to learn
some of the many aspects of aviation like aerodynamics and the
physics of flight.
Emerald Ridge partnered with the local National Guard helicopter
unit to bring a helicopter to their school to give their students
the chance to talk to real pilots and sit in real helicopters.
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December 13, 2016 - Specialist Melissa Marsolek, 1st Lt. Scott
Darragh, Specialist Keely Killebrew, and Chief Warrant Officer 2
Sean Quillin, all from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 140th
Aviation Regiment, with Jeff Coleman (center), aviation instructor
at Emerald Ridge High School, Puyallup, Washington in front of their
UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. The visit to the high school was part
of a partnership with the school's aviation program which gives
aspiring pilots the chance to talk to real pilots and sit in real
helicopters. (Courtesy photo by Jennifer Picardo)
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As the helicopter gracefully touched down on the field, Quillin
from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion (Assault), 140th Aviation
Regiment, couldn't help but flashback to the time when he was a
young student down on that very same field and watched a helicopter
land in front of him. Only the helicopter wasn't a Black Hawk, it
was a CH-47 Chinook.
“When you're a 16- to 17-year-old kid it
was the coolest thing ever to see a Chinook, one of the largest
helicopters in the Army inventory, land on your football field,”
Quillin said. “You feel the hurricane winds and … it almost didn't
even seem real back then, it was one of the coolest things to
witness.”
Quillin himself was a young aspiring pilot when he
attended Emerald Ridge and was taking those same aviation classes,
preparing himself for life as a pilot.
But Quillin's career
as a helicopter pilot almost didn't happen. He was actually in talks
with his local Air Force recruiter to become a fighter pilot.
Quillin said that he thought that flying a Chinook was just as
cool as fighter jets so he jumped at the chance to fly helicopters.
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December 13, 2016 - Chief Warrant Officer 2 Sean Quillin carefully
navigated his UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter above a crowd of
wind-swept high school kids. Below him was the wide open gridiron of
Emerald Ridge High School's football field. (Courtesy photo by
Jennifer Picardo)
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“Once the helicopter landed out at the school I saw a
different route,” Quillin said.
Quillin maintained
contact with the pilots he saw that day and eventually
joined the Washington National Guard as a helicopter
mechanic. Later, he'd go on to flight school.
In
fact, the same pilot who flew the Chinook to his school was
the same person that helped get Quillin off to
Warrant Officer School. Now, Quillin works with him daily.
After he went to flight school and followed his path to
become a pilot, he'd often thought about flying back to that
high school to promote that same kind of experience.
Quillin kept in contact with the teachers in his aviation
class over the years and finally got the opportunity to
pilot his Black Hawk to Emerald Ridge. And now, as Quillin
proudly shows off his Black Hawk, he hopes that his visit
here will spark that love for aviation in a new generation
of National Guard pilots.
“That they would get the
same kind of motivation for an aviation career is, honestly,
all I want out of [this assignment],” he said.
By U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Jason Kriess
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2017
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