It ’s the perfect partnership : Student pilot get their flight education hour , and tax shelter animate being happen young home .
As a student fender atSAMS Academy , 17 - year - sometime Cody Anderson spends hour training both on the undercoat and high in the sky . SAMS Academy hopes that Anderson is the first of many students to take part inrescue flightstransporting dog-iron from overcrowded New Mexico animal shelters to areas where they have a high chance of getting dramatize .
" I mean it would be a great opportunity to go to a new airdrome , learn cross - country flying , and why not lay aside a dog ’s life while doing that ? " Anderson say .
Melissa J. Koko Documentary Photographer
The opportunity is thanks to a partnership between SAMS ( Southwest Aeronautics , Mathematics and Science ) Academy andBarkhouse , a New Mexico animate being public assistance organization focus on rescue flight as well asspaying and neuteringandmicrochipping .
Because of overpopulation , hundreds of creature a twelvemonth are needlessly kill in municipal shelters all across the region . " The Southwest is notorious for that , and that ’s an outcome that we ca n’t sit down by and keep an eye on , " Barkhouse Executive Director Koko Dean read . " We began to acknowledge thatlocal adoptionwas not meeting the uptake at these shelters , and saving were full . "
recall outside the boxful led Barkhouse to develop its deliverance by Relocation programme two - and - a - half days ago . It ’s partner withDog Is My CoPilotandPet Rescue Pilotsto transport animals to areas across the Pacific Northwest that have the paired issue : They have more willing adopters than animals to take in .
Melissa J. Koko Documentary Photographer
When Barkhouse ’s usual pilot had to bring his plane down for maintenance before Christmas , it had to put out a desperate plea for a pilot that would help channelize the 70 animals they had already distinguish and prepared for the flights . Through Women in Aviation International , Barkhouse contacted Dr. Lauren Chavez , main flying instructor at SAMS Academy .
" She saw the natural relationship , see that the trainees involve the flight time , and we needed ways to get our animate being to different places , " Dean says . " She thought she could really give those training flights a purpose . "
According to Director of Aeronautics Nathan Hardin , SAMS Academy was activated to be part of the effort and bring extra determination to their students . " The biggest thing is the tot value to the education environment , " he says . " We talk a circumstances in grooming about make impertinent decisions concerning the prophylactic of a flight . We ’re really big in risk direction and mitigation . We can talk about these thing , but it bring a new asset to it when there ’s a real creation consequence on the other final stage . "
Melissa J. Koko Documentary Photographer
Anderson ’s interest in airmanship started after he took a helicopter tour of duty over the Rio Grande . When he attended a fly - in at Double Eagle II Airport — where SAMS Academy is located — he get a line that he could get a private pilot ’s license before graduating with his high schooling diploma . " I just could n’t pass up an opportunity like that , " he says .
Once SAMS Academy had decided to take part in a Barkhouse deliverance flight to Roswell , N.M. , Chavez ask Anderson if he would like to bring together . Anderson immediately take her up on the offering . The duo completed their first delivery trajectory on Dec. 17 , 2020 .
Anderson , whose crime syndicate has aRhodesian ridgeback , was amazed and overwhelmed by the opportunity to be so close to 20 puppy and two momma dog . While flying , he remembers perpetually bet back to verify everyone was doing OK . " To be capable to enthral 22 of them in our little Cessna 172 Skyhawk is something I do n’t think I ’ll ever leave , " he say . " It ’s something so gravid that I can do as just one soul . "
Chavez and Anderson have completed two rescue flights in partnership with Barkhouse . Both Dean and Hardin hope the partnership will proceed .
" I think it ’s really good that they ’re try out to pass this living - saving effort on to a vernal population of up - and - amount pilots , " Dean state . He hopes that Barkhouse will continue to grow and exposit the success of their rescue flight outside of New Mexico . " We ’re hopefully going to put ourselves out of a job , " he says . " [ But ] the animal population that survive , it ’s going to be a long clock time before that chance . "
Hardin thinks a web of pilots , similar to howAngel Flightworks , could be developed . " There are so many students that could do good from this , and there ’s a whole asset to flight education that ’s not being explored aright now . "
As for Anderson , he hopes to be able to do more of these saving flights and eventually have an aviation career .
