BULTMAN Youth
Flight Scholarship

up to $600 for soaring pilots.
Annual. Deadline April 30.

SSA's boost into advanced soaring for young ground crew

This is a "worker" award for a young soaring pilot who has made impressive contributions to a USA soaring Club or School. Someone who may be too financially strapped to buy tows for personal recreation or personal progress in the sport.

This award is intended to finance post-solo soaring by SSA members aged 14-22. This includes activities such as chasing badges, attending wave camps, entering contests, as opposed to flight training for FAA ratings.

Winners of this single annual scholarship are selected from young soaring-pilot and SSA member applicants who are of great service at a USA gliderport, and who make a good case via an applicant's statement and letters of recommendation for their desire to progress in soaring, their financial need, and promise in other aspects of life.

Promotion of the program is a cooperation between SSA, which administers and judges the scholarship, and local soaring clubs and schools, who get credit for their charges. Also, they may well perform advanced training of the winner or collect fees for aircraft rental or services. When one of their ground-crew gang wins, they win.

The sponsors of this program, from throughout the USA soaring community, hope the scholarship will help a few more young people make the transition from basic glider flying to sport soaring. In the process, the word can grow that excellence as a soaring pilot need not require advanced age or a large bank account. Most importantly, this is a "thank you" to young ground-crew workers on whom the sport depends so much.

General Soaring Information for intermediate pilots

 | Soaring Fact Sheet | Sailplanes & Youth | Soaring Society of America | Sailplane Directory  |
| US Team | Sailplane Racing Assoc. | Good's SRA Guide to Competition | Bartell's Start Racing |

INDEX of BULTMAN Scholarship Information

INTRO   BACK   HERE   NEXT   LINKS

RULES for the BULTMAN Scholarship Contest

• OPEN TO AGES 14-22, inclusive, as of April 30. (A reasonable overlap of the limits of "school age", SSA Youth membership, and FAA regulations)

• OPEN TO SOARING PILOTS: Flying experience of at least FAA Student Certificate (solo pilot) in sailplanes (Soaring starts where basic glider flying leaves off)

• OPEN TO SSA MEMBERS: Folks who have shown a commitment to the USA soaring community and are ready to work up the SSA/FAI badge system. (The Soaring Society of America is the USA governing body for the sport of soaring in sailplanes)

• FIRST PRIZE (up to 1): Up to $600 in the form of a check, co-written to the winner and/or the US Soaring Club or Commercial Operator that sponsors the entry. (The prize must be used for soaring activities: ship rental, badge attempts, contest entry fees,... Not flight training for FAA ratings, not college expenses)

• SECOND PRIZE (up to 3): On occasion, a close runner-up may be recognized with textbooks or T-shirts and encouraged to apply again.

• ENTRY DEADLINE is April 30. Awards should be announced by mid Summer.

• JUDGING will be by the "Bultman Scholarship" Committee within the SSA Youth Committee. (The number of prizes awarded may vary based on entries received)

• APPLICATION is to include a STATEMENT, detailing the applicant's experience with and goals for future soaring. (Reference to specific ship checkouts, camps, contests... is highly recommended. Care should be taken to document all soaring participation--ground or air--and financial need).  Also, one or more RECOMMENDATIONS are needed from Club Officers, Flight Instructors or other mentors (Care should be taken to document the quality and quantity of the applicant's service to a Club or School)

• COMPLETED APPLICATIONS must be witnessed by a member of a soaring club or gliderport staff, and sent to:

BULTMAN Youth Flight Scholarship
Soaring Society of America
PO Box 2100
Hobbs, NM 88241-2100

• APPLICATION FORM (PDF Format)

WINNERS of the BULTMAN Scholarship

As a detailed example of talent, consider Sky Powers, a line boy for Gulf Coast Soaring and Blue Bayou Soaring Society at Stennis airport, Kiln, Mississippi. First to arrive, last to leave, Sky was an indispensable resource to the local glider guiders and was learning A&P skills on the side. The son of a single mother who worked craft shows, he would not have been able to afford flying at all if he could not trade work for tows. [See image of Sky top right this page]

Soaring CHALLENGES for the solo soaring pilot

Books like Knauff's "After Solo" or Wander's "...Made Easy" series lay it out, not to mention the motivational classics by Phillip Wills ("On being a bird"...) or Gren Seibels ("Pilot's choice"...).  There are lots of avenues to explore after achieving flight as "sole occupant of the aircraft", and pursuing advanced FAA Certificates is just one track.  Private, Commercial, and Instructor FAA tickets can indeed be obtained for expanded privileges with respect to passengers, but this could be done in any aircraft category.  Consider instead the opportunities that are virtually unique to the FAA "Glider" rating, to sailplane flying and soaring:

• Single-place aircraft (have you flown a 1-26?  A PW-5?...   more responsive, available, independent)

• Higher-performance sailplanes (in Germany, Astirs and LS-4s are commonly operated by clubs)

• Other forms of lift (sure, you can thermal, but have you flown ridge? wave? convergence?)

• SSA Badges (A,B,C, Bronze.  A systematic sequence to mastery of staying up, getting high, going far... )

• X-C training (purposeful flights, max climb, Speed-To-Fly, course optimization, navigation, field selection...)

• FAI badges (Silver, Gold, Diamonds.  Every year, SSA documents a few Silver Cs vs. hundreds of  A badges)

• Camps and Field trips (trailer to a remote site with improved scenery or soaring potential)

• Safaris (have you soared to the next nearest Club/FBO?  Often they'll give a free tow or a "travelling trophy")

• Records (whether personal bests or SSA State Soaring records, there are plenty of marks to challenge)

• Club ladders or contests (racking up miles or rounding familiar triangles gains an edge when you race someone)

• SSA Contests (the Sports Class handicap system makes this accessible with any sailplane)

Not many young people give these adventures a try each year, but it need not be for lack of a sailplane (no one says you have to own one), or a mentor (every Club or FBO has veterans delighted to turn coach for the asking).  If the obstacle is merely tow money, apply for the Bultman award! See also Junior Training Grant and Junior Entry Grant .

TESTIMONIALS to the BULTMAN Scholarship

From the 1993 Winner...

.Jenner Torrance of the Adrian Soaring Club (MI) had soloed the club's ASK-13, ASK-21 and 1-26 by age 16.  He was often the first to arrive at the airport and the last to leave and generally made himself indispensable.  He wrote to thank us for the new horizons his scholarship gave him, and he added crucial insights about youth and soaring:

"... A surprising number of young people have no idea what soaring is or what a sailplane really is.  In order for soaring to have a  future, those who are now involved have to introduce young people to the sport.  We cannot sit back and wait for them to come to us.  It won't happen.  Soaring is so fascinating that if people are just made aware of it,... the sport will take care of the rest... Getting started should be made easy.  If we are willing to make it happen, the golden age of soaring has yet to arrive."

From the 2001 Winner...

Sylvia Szafarczyk had done everything from hooking up ropes to waxing gliders to editing the club's newsleter. In her own words, she encapsulates the social spirit of the sport:

"...The soaring community and the members at SCOH have become like family, and they are my teachers, my motivators, my friends, my mentors, and my heroes.  My involvement in soaring has taught me aspects about life that I would have never been exposed to otherwise.  It's amazing how much this art of flight has affected me physically, mentally, and spiritually... I want to thank the SSA for providing youth opportunities like this, and I feel that the Bultman award emphasizes a very important part of soaring. Personally, I've always found great pleasure and satisfaction in working as a ground crew member.  In addition to giving me yet more opportunity to spend time at the gliderport and a way to help finance my flying, crewing has also helped me with many other aspects of soaring.  Crewing has given me the advantage of being familiar with operations, members and their sailplanes, and the overall "rhythm of things."... Youth should be encouraged to be involved within soaring and the soaring community.  They are the future of this amazing and incredible sport.  The youth involved in soaring now should do everything in their effort to introduce others to soaring;  I find myself surrounded with an astounding amount of people, youth and adults alike, that have an absolutely limited amount of knowledge concerning soaring and sailplanes, and many people don't know that soaring is something that truly exists... I can only imagine how many more lives it would change if youth outside of the sport were simply made aware of the sheer beauty of soaring."

DONORS to the BULTMAN Scholarship Program

Jane & Elizabeth Bultman set up this award to honor their late husband and father, Richard P. Bultman, and to remind us of the many ground-crew friends on which we rely on every time we soar. Richard Bultman was an airline pilot and former USAF fighter pilot who enjoyed a frequent 'busman's holiday' at the gliderport. For most of his involvement in soaring, this was the Bermuda High Soaring School, then in Chester SC, in the days when Gren Seibels, Ben Greene, and Joe Giltner were making it famous, and teenagers like Charlie Spratt, Mike Hoke, and Ed Kilbourne were getting hooked on the sport.

Before being approved as an SSA program at the 1995 Winter SSA Board meeting, the program had already shown its worth under private sponsorship by the Collegiate Soaring Association, 1992-'94, directed by Erik Mann (of the Soaring Society of Princeton U.) and Rob Hildebrand (of the Soaring Club at UCSD).

Funding a service award like this should be an undertaking of the whole soaring community, much as the flying of any glider is a cooperation between pilot, launch crew, and whole clubs or staffs of people. Accordingly, all soaring pilots ahould consider themselves invited to contribute to the endowment fund.

Tax-deductible donations to "SSA" for the "BULTMAN Youth Flight Scholarship"
may be sent at any time to the Soaring Society of America, Inc.
PO Box 2100, Hobbs NM 88241-2100. development@ssa.org. (505)392-1177,-8154(FAX)
Credit Cards are welcome.

SUCCESSES for the BULTMAN Scholarship

The year of  her Bultman award (1995) , Liz Schwenkler flew the Region 3 contest in Sports Classs and won one of the contest days. In 1996,  she flew 3 Regionals and won Region 3 Sports Class in the HHSC club 1-34.  This earned her top rank among USA Junior pilots (age 25 and under). In 1997, she finished her FAI Gold Badge and won the SSA Kolstad award. She was selected to the 1997 USA Junior Soaring Team and flew a Std. Libelle in Club Class in Germany.  Her final placing of 13th was the best of the team of 3 pilots. In 1998, Liz flew 2 USA National contests in club-owned aircraft (HHSC has an ASW-19 and ASW-20 reserved for their Juniors).  In 1999, Liz was again selected for the USA Junior Team. She turned 21 that year. 2003, her last year of eligibility as an under-26 “Junior” saw her win the SSA Junior Champion title, and in 2005 she won the Region 3 Sports Class mentoring Juniors in a Duo Discus.

Mike Robison, the 1998 winner, single handedly revitalized the Penn State Soaring Club and got them to the point where they could afford a 2nd Blanik L-13. Flying the Collegiate Soaring Association's 1-36 and HP-14, Mike flew Diamond Goal on the ridge and attended his first contests (Blanik meet, Region 2 and 6S) on Bultman funds. Mike was selected for a CSA Gogos scholarship at Minden in 1999, and was also picked as an SSA Kolstad award winner that year. In 2001, Mike was selected for the USA Junior Team and flew an LS-4 in Club Class at the World Junior Gliding Championships in France. In 2005, Mike won the Region 2 Sports Class much like Liz did further North, mentoring Juniors in a Duo Discus.

In 2003, Sylvia Szafarczyk (2001) won another scholarship from a Colorado foundation (MHYGA) to learn wave soaring, having used Bultman money to check out in all the solo ships at her home club. Her trip to Colorado exposed her to flying on Oxygen at 24,000' and earned her a Silver altitude leg. The following summer of 2004, she joined up with another Texas Junior pilot, Mike Westbrook, to team fly a Twin Astir at the Region 9 contest at Hobbs. They were in the lead the first 3 days. In 2005, Sylvia completed her Gold badge with one Diamond at the US Team Junior camp in Moriarty, NM.

Back to SSA YOUTH Homepage

Please feel free to visit these other Youth-in-Soaring Links

 |  Kolstad College Scholarship |  Cadet Flight Scholarship | 
 |  USA Junior Soaring Team |  Kolstad Century Badges |  Collegiate Soaring Association | 
 |  National Flight Academy-Glider | SSA Youth Sub-Committee |  Sailplanes & Youth |