Note: The following article first appeared in the Winter 2023 issue of The Galax, Christ School's biannual magazine. 

This winter, our afternoon sports offerings included an exciting, new activity: aviation. Conceived by two former military fighter pilots, Spanish teacher Les Thornbury, who flew for seven years with the Navy and parent Stephen Hoffert P’26, a retired career Air Force pilot, the Robert Morgan ’36 Aviation Program took off with 10 eager pilots in training. While Thornbury has been planning this program for years, it was a parent-teacher conference with Hoffert that really got the wheels turning and led to the program that was launched in November.

“Over the course of about 18 months we came up with a plan that we could present to the school. It’s important to note that without Steve [Hoffert], there is no program, at least not in the way we know it now,” Thornbury said. “My original plan was to drive kids down to the Asheville airport and drop them off at the local flight school.” Instead, they incorporated their own flight school with Christ School as its sole client, giving them the freedom to purchase their own plane and run the program out of a small airstrip in Hendersonville, NC, away from control towers and other distractions. “So now, instead of some external group working with kids, it’s a parent and a faculty member who are sharing the responsibilities.” Since Steve already has all of his instructor ratings, he’s been taking the boys flying since their first afternoon in November. Les will soon be a certified instructor as well.

The autonomy of the program allows Thornbury and Hoffert the ability to set the pace and structure. And while there are other schools in the country that offer aviation, there is no other high school program that does so with a plane that’s designed to undertake aerobatics. “Because we bought an aerobatic aircraft that can spin and do rolls and flips it allows us to expose kids to a part of aviation that is hard to find anywhere else,” said Thornbury. The plane is a 1998 American Champion Citabria, a tandem two-seater that gives the students the feel of flying solo, even with their instructor sitting behind them. Thornbury believes that flying an aerobatic plane will give the boys a competitive edge in their future flying. “We didn’t just buy the plane to have fun, we bought it because it will better prepare the boys for any flying situation that may arise,” Thornbury said. “He will know what it feels like to enter into a spin and will therefore be able to anticipate and correct it if it happens in the future. From a safety perspective, we think we are building better pilots.”

The goal of the program is to get every boy up to pre-solo speed, or rather all of the steps necessary before the FAA gets involved. For $4500 Christ School students of all ages are eligible to participate in the program during the winter sports period. “What we provide is 10 hours of flight time and the entire ground school; all of the academic course work that you would do to get your pilot’s license we complete during the sports period so they will be prepared to take his FAA exam at the end of the season” Thornbury said. Each boy will have a logbook signed by the Hoffert with hours that are good for the rest of their lives. Thanks to the generosity of two sets of parents, the boys will also have unlimited access to a state-of-the-art FAA-approved flight simulator, allowing them to log another two and a half hours. “The BATD (Basic Aviation Training Device) simulator produced by Real Sim Gear, adds $600 in value per student per year, not to mention that the students will have just about unlimited access to the system as will be housed in Thornbury’s classroom. It’s a large, three-screen FAA-approved high-powered gaming device that runs flight simulator software.

Les and Steve structured the program so that each of the boys gets to fly each week. “Our worst enemy is daylight, and we knew it from the start, so we designed it to run two flights a day.” Those guys who have a free block at the end of the day are able to head down to Hendersonville (a 20-minute drive) for the first flight with Steve and a faculty member brings down the next guy after classes. When they are not flying, the students work on the academic piece. The weekly schedule (when the weather cooperates) is two Sim days, two academic days, and one flight day. They use the King School curriculum; “It’s a complete online comprehensive course tailored to the FAA exam, but we supplement that because there’s no way you can learn all you need to know by watching 10-minute videos,” Thornbury said. “So, on rainy days the two us co-teach a class on a core subject that the kids are working on, such as how an altimeter and artificial horizon work, how air space works, what to avoid, and what are altitude limits.”

Tyler Brouse ’26, who participated in the inaugural aviation season with brother Scott ’23 said, “I first got interested in flying when I flew with my dad’s friend who had a plane and I thought it was amazing; when we heard about Christ School’s aviation program, my brother and I agreed that it was something we wanted to try out.” Penn Morris ’26, who mountain biked with Mr. Thornbury in the fall, was already planning to take lessons at a county airport. “When this came about, I took this opportunity and jumped on it and so far I’ve loved it. Being up in the air is awesome, and just looking at the views and knowing that one day I might be a pilot is even better,” Penn said. For Tucker Semens ’26 it’s a dream come true. “I’ve always wanted to fly and pursue getting my private pilot’s license and eventually fly in the military and I didn’t really know who I was going to do that. When the aviation program became available it was the perfect opportunity and so I jumped on it right away and it’s been a blast so far.”

Thornbury admits it was a leap of faith for the school to approve the program. “This is not like saying we’re starting a bowling league; we’re taking kids flying!” It certainly didn’t hurt to already have an instructor like Hoffert lined up to teach. “If you go to learn to fly at an airport, you’re going to get a 21-year-old who’s trying to build time to go into the airlines,” Thornbury said. “Nobody else is getting a 6000-hour recently retired Air Force pilot to teach them how to fly. Steve was a flight instructor for the Air Force Air Training Command so he’s very patient and he knows exactly what’s going on in a student’s mind.” The fact that Hoffert is a Greenie parent (his son Easton ’26 participated this winter) adds a lot of credibility to the program. In the early parent meetings Hoffert, anticipating other parents’ concerns said “Look, I get it, I’m a parent, my own son is in the program; you can be confident that your son’s safety will be paramount.”

Thornbury named the program after Christ School alumnus, Robert Morgan ’36, who was the pilot of the Memphis Belle, the famous WWII bomber. It just so happens that his picture hangs in Harris House, the dorm where Thornbury is Head of House. “In Asheville aviation circles he’s pretty famous.” And although Morgan has passed away, his daughter lives in the area. Each year, the boys will design a patch to put on their jackets and they hope to invite Morgan’s daughter to campus to receive one later this year.

While his aviation program certainly gives the school bragging rights, Thornbury hopes that it doesn’t stop there and that it will pave the way for teachers to pioneer other hands-on learning initiatives. “I think that the school’s stamp of approval speaks to Headmaster Sean Jenkins’s desire to start greenlighting the kinds of ambitious programs that will more the school forward. Really, what I hope is that it serves as a sort of road map for other teachers’ visions. If this thing can happen, then a robotics, engineering, or automotive lab can happen,” said Thornbury. “Also, I hope to move it into the curriculum so that the academic piece would be for credit. I always think, imagine if every class the boys took was a class they wanted to take. Imagine if your science class was aviation and the fundamentals of aerodynamics; that would truly be something!”