A free event to get kids up close to small airplanes in Chatham-Kent has already sold out.
"Within seven hours, 150 kids were signed up," says COPA for Kids organizer Dave Barnier. "But right now we are telling people to keep an eye on the site because if there's cancellations, then we'll open the site up, the time slots again. We want to get as many kids as we can in there."
Organizer Aaron McPhail says the event, taking place at the Chatham-Kent Municipal Airport on Saturday, September 8, is geared towards kids between the ages of 8 and 17.
"Basically give them a little bit of a ground school, so we show they how planes fly, give them a little bit of the theory of flight," he says. "Then we assign them a pilot and they go through a safety briefing with them, and then we're going to take them on a flight across Chatham-Kent, which is really cool."
McPhail says the older kids can use the event as a jumping off point.
"The 14 to 17 age group actually will get their first logbook and they'll also be given access to a free, online ground school that, if they go through it and do all the work, they can actually write a Transport Canada exam," says McPhail.
The Canadian Owners and Pilots Association (COPA) is hosting the event. To check if any spots have opened, CLICK HERE.