Teen gets fighter pilot training
By Taylor Brown
tbrown@yourmvi.com
A Belle Vernon Area sophomore has big dreams for his future.
William Schwerha recently graduated from a program at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala.
Aviation Challenge opened in 1990 and uses fighter pilot training techniques to engage trainees in real-world applications of STEM subjects.
Students sleep in quarters designed to resemble military bays.
Schwerha wants to be an aerospace engineer, in addition to his interest in football as a kicker for the Leopards.
After his parents learned of his aspirations, they found a program to help him reach his goals.
“He is just a really smart, awesome kid,” said his mother, Michele Schwerha.
She said William takes after his grandfather, the late Speers Mayor Bill Lee.
“He’s cut straight from my dad’s soul,” she said. “He is definitely not your typical teenage boy. When we told him he would have to work hard and start applying himself in different ways to achieve his goals, he looked at me and said ‘That’s a great idea.’”
Before school let out for the summer, William was put on a plane to Alabama for a week-long Aviation Challenge Mach III camp at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, which is also the home of Space Camp, Space Camp Robotics, Aviation Challenge and U.S. Cyber Camp.
The Rocket Center is a Smithsonian affiliate, and the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center’s Official Visitor Center and has graduated nearly a million trainees since its inception in Huntsville in 1982, including European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and NASA astronauts Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, Dr. Kate Rubins, Dr. Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Christina Koch, who set the record for the longest duration space flight by a female.
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