Milestone: Biss takes chapter’s 4,000th Young Eagle flight

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, August 3, 2022

April Biss said her daughter Paige’s fascination with flight started at age 3, and six years later the youngster built a 10-foot-wide glider with the intent to take off from a rooftop.

“Naturally, I put an end to that thought and found her a long hill to run and test her lift,” April Biss wrote. “When it failed, she didn’t let go of her dreams to fly.”

Now 13, Paige Biss marked a major milestone for EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) Chapter 430, becoming the 4,000th youngster to receive a flight through the chapter’s Young Eagle program.

Biss took flight with local pilot Gordon Tubesing at a Young Eagle rally on July 16 at Sequim Valley Airport.

The program offers free flights to youths of ages 8-17.

Biss is a Port Angeles resident and cadet in the local Civil Air Patrol program.

“You could always find her climbing up as high as she could in a tree just to get an idea of what it was like to be a bird,” April Biss noted.”

Paige Biss took a flight with Rite Bros. Aviation for her birthday two years ago.

“She was in the passenger front seat and could not get enough of the experience,” April recalled. “ Even the turbulence didn’t shake her. She listens for the stunt planes that fly around our home in Port Angeles and searches the sky until she spots them.”

Paige’s future aim, April said, is to fly the helicopter for the U.S. Coast Guard as her grandfather did.

“She loves search and rescue and helping people while doing her job is her primary objective,” April Biss wrote.

A member of the Civil Air Patrol since April 2022, she has been promoted twice in the last three months and was preparing to go to Ground Search and Rescue Academy at Fort Lewis McChord AFB in late July, to spend eight days learning repelling, search and rescue skills and more.

”She is excited to be a part of an organization that has goals and aspirations that line up with her own,” April Biss wrote. “Flying runs deep in her desires and she is striving to keep learning all that she can.”