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Class is in session
Using a restored Cobra attack helicopter as an attention-getting training tool, Keith Sullivan, a retired U.S. Air Force helicopter pilot, explains the dynamics of flight to students at Columbia’s W.A. Perry Middle School during a Celebrate Freedom Foundation fly-in event.
Photo by Mic Smith
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Getting things off the ground
Retired military pilot Jack Lovelady, CFF’s president and COO, helped found the organization and was instrumental in getting military equipment assigned to the nonprofit group. He praises the 200 volunteers who make the organization run as “an awesome collection of individuals.”
Photo by Mic Smith
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At the center of it all
Lori Wicker, CFF executive vice president and STEM program director, organizes the school visits and works with the veterans and volunteers. “I’ve given them a new mission,” she says,” and that’s to inspire the next generation.”
Photo by Mic Smith
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All the cool toys
Marine Corps veteran Dylan Walters, CFF’s aerospace instructor, demonstrates a collection of robots and drones during a visit to Columbia’s W.A. Perry Middle School, home to an aerospace magnet program.
Photo by Keith Phillips
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Driven to career success
Mark Inabinet, CFF’s ground vehicle maintenance supervisor, uses a restored Humvee as way to discuss lucrative job opportunities open to qualified mechanics.
Photo by Keith Phillips
You hear it before you see it. The rhythmic whomp-whomp-whomp of the 1,000-pound blade slicing through the air is hard to miss as the Cobra attack helicopter makes a low pass over Columbia’s W.A. Perry Middle School, where 500 children are huddled, their faces turned upward.
As soon as the Cobra touches down in the school parking lot, a ground crew of military veterans from the Celebrate Freedom Foundation (CFF) is in motion, securing the chopper for today’s mission—encouraging students to take STEM courses (science, technology, engineering and math) and explore high-paying careers in aviation and mechanical fields.
“I’ve given them a new mission and that’s to inspire the next generation,” says Lori Wicker, CFF’s executive vice president and director of its STEM program. She pauses to look at the students who move in groups to admire the helicopter up close and talk to the pilots. “The only limitation you have is what you set your mind to.”
The wow factor
This school visit—one of 50 across the Southeast in 2023—features a display of drones and a Humvee, all staffed by CFF volunteers. But the “wow factor” is the Cobra helicopter nicknamed Maggie. This particular aircraft was piloted by Marines in Grenada, as well as Bosnia and Desert Storm, before being assigned to CFF as a teaching tool.
Copilot Keith Sullivan has emerged from the forward-facing gunner’s post—aka “the bullet-catcher’s seat”—and he’s telling the students about the dynamics of flight, hoping to inspire his audience in the same way he was enthralled with aviation as a ninth grader on a visit to the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. Sullivan graduated from the academy and spent 20 years flying helicopters for the U.S. Air Force, including missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. For the past two years, he’s been a volunteer with CFF.
The foundation has nearly 200 volunteers ranging in age from 18 to 87, says Jack Lovelady, president and COO. “We’re veterans inspiring the next generation,” says Lovelady, a 76-year-old former Army pilot and one of CFF’s founders. “It’s a culmination of all the training and life experiences we have had that we can use to inspire the young generation to do something really positive with their life from a career standpoint. It’s just an awesome collection of individuals.”
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CFF Headquarters
Based out of a hangar at Columbia Metropolitan Airport, CFF can deploy an impressive array of retired military hardware during school visits around the Southeast. Between visits, volunteers stay busy maintaining helicopters, drones, Humvees, jeeps and other vehicles.
Photo by Mic Smith
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On the road
When a fly-in visit isn’t practical, the volunteers can trailer one of their restored Cobra attack helicopters to the site. The multi-million dollar aircraft are ideal educational props, says CFF founder Jack Lovelady. “They have turbine jet engines, avionics systems, hydraulics, electronics. It’s everything that can teach the physics of flight and connect the classrooms with real-world jobs.”
Photo by Mic Smith
CFF can boast a pretty impressive collection of hardware, too. The group’s hangar at Columbia Metropolitan Airport is filled with retired military helicopters, drones, jeeps and Humvees in various phases of restoration. When they aren’t visiting schools, the volunteers are hanging out, maintaining the equipment in their care.
“These multimillion-dollar aircraft represent STEM training aids,” Lovelady says of the Cobra helicopters like Maggie. “They have turbine jet engines, avionics systems, hydraulics, electronics. It’s everything that can teach the physics of flight and connect the classrooms with real-world jobs.”
Careers close to home
The W.A. Perry visit is part of CFF’s partnership with Richland School District One’s aerospace magnet program, says Karen Ogen, the STEM consultant at Perry Middle School. “We want our students to know there are great opportunities for them. The industry is wide open.”
In addition to the Cobra fly-in, Marine Corps veteran Dylan Walters, CFF’s aerospace instructor, showed students a table full of state-of-the-art drones and discussed different careers available in aviation. Not far away, Mark Inabinet, the group’s ground vehicle maintenance supervisor, showed off a Humvee while explaining the career options for skilled mechanics.
“We’re showing these kids real life, the things that they can do,” Walters says. “If you want to stay here in South Carolina, here are things you can do to make money. College isn’t for everyone. The military isn’t for everyone. But there are plenty of opportunities.”
“We don’t want them to get a job. Anybody can get a job,” Inabinet says. “We want you to get a career. Something you can enjoy.”
Serving veterans
And while the nonprofit foundation is focused on inspiring future generations, Lovelady says the organization is and will continue to be “a sounding board and support group” for this country’s veterans.
Wicker tells of one volunteer who was stationed at the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, on the morning of Oct. 23, 1983, when two truck bombers struck the buildings. While he survived, 241 fellow American service members lost their lives that day. For many of the next 20 years, the man struggled with survivor’s remorse, Wicker says.
Today, that survivor is an active member of the organization, a crew chief for its Huey helicopter, and he can be found most days working on the aircraft at the foundation’s hangar.
“He tells me, ‘I do this for all those who didn’t make it,’” says Wicker. “I tell him, ‘That’s why you’re here. To keep going. And keep doing things.’”
Get More
If you have an interest in volunteering or would like to schedule a field trip, call Celebrate Freedom Foundation at (803) 822-8812 or visit gocff.org.
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Roger Lone’s adventures in aviation
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Roger Lone, CFF’s chief pilot, flew Cobra attack helicopters in combat during the Vietnam War and has logged more than 13,000 flight hours over his career as a military and civilian pilot.
Photo by Mic Smith
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Supporting his wingman
Roger Lone (far right) assists his fellow CFF volunteer, Keith Sullivan (center), as they teach the dynamics of flight to students at W.A. Perry Middle School in Columbia.
Photo by Mic Smith
Flying has taken Celebrate Freedom Foundation volunteer Roger Lone from the rolling hills of South Dakota to the jungles of Vietnam to exotic cities across the world. Since getting his pilot’s license more than five decades ago, he’s amassed more than 13,000 hours of flight time.
Growing up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Lone started flying at 16 and earned his pilot’s license at 18, the same year he graduated from high school.
Vietnam was on the news when Lone started college. When he was 20, he was drafted into the Army. With his aviation background, Lone knew he wanted to be up in the air rather than toting a rifle in the jungle. He began helicopter training at Fort Wolters, Texas, with advanced training at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and then Savannah, Georgia, where he first got to fly the heavily armed Cobra attack helicopter. Lone finished in the top five of his class and had his pick of aircraft.
The decision was easy. “I wanted to fly something where I could shoot back,” he says.
In October 1971, Lone left behind his wife and daughter and arrived in Vietnam, where he piloted the AH-1G Cobra over the Central Highlands region north of Saigon. Typically, Lone’s unit would average about 100 hours of flight each month, usually in active combat.
“Our only mission was to go out and find bad guys,” Lone says. “We just went out and looked for trouble every day.”
Lone’s aircraft was shot down twice, but “it was no real big deal,” he says. The third time was much different. The experience left him hospitalized for months and a recipient of the Purple Heart.
It was July 16, 1972, five days before his 22nd birthday. Lone was flying his Cobra alongside another Cobra piloted by his wingman, L.D. Varner, and a Huey piloted by Butch Nielson. They were in a “known bad guy area.” On previous flyovers, he had spotted trenches, anti-aircraft pits, bunkers and a few soldiers. But on this day, “I didn’t see anything,” Lone says. “They had a trap set for me.”
In order to avoid heat-seeking missiles, Lone was flying his Cobra just above the tree canopy, barely 100 feet above the ground. When he turned over a river, the North Vietnamese Army troops opened up.
“I just flew through a wall of fire,” Lone recalls. “Everything from me on back was hit. The helicopter was pretty much Swiss cheese. I could see the ground from between my knees.”
Vern Stintson, his copilot in the gunner’s seat, suffered only a small cut. Lone took shrapnel in his legs, chest and neck. The neck wound was the most severe, as his right carotid artery was sliced. “I was squirting blood all the way to my instrument panel,” he says. Then an enemy missile knocked out his engine.
Lone’s Cobra went down in a graveyard.
“Guys were standing in the tree line just blasting away at us,” Lone says. “I don’t remember any sound, but you could just see the muzzle flashes, dirt kicking up all around us.”
With Varner providing cover fire from the other Cobra, Nielson swooped the Huey in for a rescue. “Butch and his crew surely saved us from being captured,” Lone says. “They are the heroes and the reason I am alive today.”
After months of recovery in multiple military hospitals, Lone was released in November 1972—and immediately went back to flying helicopters at Fort Lewis, Washington. His Army tour ended in March 1974, and he spent the next four years flying helicopters out West before returning to airplanes.
Lone spent the next four decades flying business jets all over the world before he retired in 2019. Not long after, he attended an air show at Shaw Air Force Base and met members of the Celebrate Freedom Foundation. He liked what the organization was doing and became a volunteer. He is now their chief pilot and the aircraft maintenance supervisor.
“I enjoy going out and talking to the kids,” he says, even when “they always ask the same question, ‘Did you get shot down?’”