On April 7th, a small group of extremely lucky cadet and senior members from the Miami Springs Optimist Cadet Squadron, was honored with a personal guided tour of the Boeing Flight Training Center, located in Miami Springs.  After touring the facility, every cadet and senior member present was given the unique opportunity to "fly" one of Boeing's state-of-the-art Class D Boeing 737 aircraft simulators in order to personally experience and execute a "take-off" at the controls of a simulated Boeing 737 aircraft.  These are the same aircraft simulators on which new as well as experienced commercial airline pilots learn, practice, and get "checked-out" on, while logging actual "flight time" performing some of the more complex and dangerous flight maneuvers with which they need to be intimately familiar and perform on a daily basis.  Some of the more experienced "pilots" in our group, with the help of some extremely experienced and dedicated flight simulator technicians at the Boeing facility, were given the once in a life-time opportunity to execute a very realistic manual VFR approach and landing onto the runway of a simulated airport, while attempting to maintain full control of the aircraft's flight attitude and configuration at the proper airspeed for a safe and "soft" landing utilizing the aircraft's primary flight controls.  Let's just say that some of the landings were smoother than others, but at least nobody actually vomited due to the experience.  We normally give it very little thought when we fly on an airliner, but landing a very large aircraft on a not-so-large runway, is a very difficult undertaking.  The experienced pilots just make it look extremely simple for us.  We hope to have future "flight" opportunities such as this one, in the future!   

For the past two years, major mile stones have been achieved by our cadets and as a result they have benefited from their rewards. 2012 began with three cadets receiving their Billy Mitchell Awards. By the second half 2012 two more cadets received their Billy Mitchell Award, they were Eugene Morales and Javier Munoz. Both cadets immediately put their new leadership accomplishments to use by becoming staff members for the 2012 Florida Wing Summer Encampment and taking staff positions at the Squadron. Cadet Munoz is a senior at Hialeah HS and is also a member of the Air Force JROTC and currently hold the position of Leadership Officer, and Cadet Morales became the Alpha Fight Commander. However; for one of these cadets it did not stop there, by November Cadet Morales continued with the program and achieved another major mile stone by obtaining the Amelia Earhart Award. After Graduating from Hialeah HS, where he was a member of Air Force JROTC, Cadet Morales then enlisted into the United States Air Force, utilized his Mitchell and Earhart Awards, and was immediately promoted to E-3, which is the rank of Airman First Class.

Now as we begin the 2013 calendar year, two more cadets have also achieved their first mile stone. On January 10th of 2013 Cadet Claire Ramirez and Cadet Victoria Garcia were awarded the Billy Mitchell award, becoming the first female cadets since 2008 to obtain this Milestone. What made this Milestone so special to them was the fact that they challenged each other to see who would obtain it first. At the end they both achieved it at the same time. When one struggled with a test, the other would tutor

them. Cadet Ramirez is a senior at Ronald Reagan Senior High and currently holds the highest position in the band program is the student conductor and is currently the Cadet Commander for the Squadron. Cadet Garcia attends the City of Hialeah Educational Academy, she is the Squadron Bravo Flight Commander, and is a member of the Florida Wing Honor Society. Both of these outstanding cadets achieved great strides even when they have to overcome high academic challenges.

Congratulations to all of outstanding cadets.