It's rare to see pilots of color. Charles Allen is out to change that with aviation program for youths.

Brayden Williams followed flight instructor Alec Bouchard around the exterior of the Cessna Skyhawk airplane.

Under the fixed wing. Past the single propeller.

It was a sunny Saturday, and Brayden was on the runway of Milwaukee County's Timmerman Airport, mentally going through a pre-flight inspection of the plane with Bouchard, of Spring City Aviation.

Brayden is just 10 years old. He and a group of classmates are taking part this summer in the New Beginnings Aviation Ministry, a free flight school for children and teens of color.

“I hope to be a pilot,” Brayden said. “I want to fly a really big plane … a commercial one.”

Charles Allen, program director, is helping move young dreams like that a step closer to reality.

“Do you know how rare it is to see someone like us in aviation? Take a guess,” Allen said. “I bet you can count the number of Black pilots, or female pilots, on one hand.”

The product of 'divine intervention'

The New Beginnings Aviation Ministry was founded in Waukesha in 2007 by Pastor Jerome Spencer, who had no experience in aviation but felt called to get youth involved in the field.

"Spencer said he was sitting on his front porch, meditating, praying. He was around children, oh, he just loved being around kids," Allen said. "While he was there, he said the Holy Spirit told him to start an aviation ministry."

Not knowing anything about aviation, Spencer reached out to Allen and three other pilots.

As a retired Air Force pilot of 17 years and a Gulf War veteran, Allen said he naturally gravitated to aviation programs. He told Spencer he was “more than thrilled” to help.

“This program was really divine intervention if you will,” Allen said. “Here's a man who knew absolutely nothing about airplanes, never been in one in his life … but he had this inspiration.”

Spencer died in 2014, but the aviation ministry for youths has continued on, with Allen in charge.

He received his bachelor's degree in chemistry and biochemistry from Rocky Mountain College in Montana, his master's in health services administration from Central Michigan University, and his medical degree from Maria Dehostos School of Medicine in the Dominican Republic.

In addition to his aviation service, Allen is a retired family practice physician and former project director for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Veterans Upward Bound program. He has several decades of experience working with veterans, and on veterans organizations. He is married with six children.

“Many years ago, someone took their time to show me the options that were available to me,” Allen said. “I could either go down this (other) road, which didn’t look very promising, or this road and I chose this path.”

His path now: Inspiring the next generation of aviation leaders. And in the process, he helps students hone their math, science and reading skills, which will help them no matter what field they end up pursuing.

Sessions mix lessons in faith, flight

The summer program consists of about 15 students ages 5 to 16, and runs every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., except for the last Saturday of each month.

Each session starts off with a Bible verse, which Allen said was Spencer's idea to have the students reflect on throughout the course. One recent session, for example, began with a discussion of the Proverbs 19 verse: "Better to be poor and walk in integrity, than rich and crooked in one’s ways."

After discussion of the day's verse, guest speakers typically come in to talk about their careers. Over the summer, Allen said, speakers ranged from commercial pilots to law enforcement officials to doctors to other members of the aviation community.

Then it’s time to take flight.

"(The students) actually get the chance to manipulate the controls in the plane," Allen said. "They get to do that from the first time they strap into that left seat."

The airplanes are owned by two flight schools: Wisconsin Aviation, where Allen is one of the flight instructors, and Spring City Aviation. One group spends time on the tarmac, physically inspecting the interior and exterior of the airplane with a pilot, to learn about various systems of the craft.

“For a child that's never been in an airplane before, and couldn't imagine what it was like to sit in an airplane, oh, it's an incredible feeling,” Allen said. “You just can't describe it. And it makes us feel good.”

Another group works with flight simulators, in which students learn how to fly an airplane. Allen said this is where students learn how to take off, how to land, learn about traffic patterns and communication patterns.

The last group is the ground school component, which consists of various topics in aviation, such as new laws, fundamentals of flying, meteorology, navigation, communications or visual flight rules.

"The next time they are sitting at home listening to the weather report, the ears will perk up," Allen said. "They'll say, 'Oh, we got a low pressure coming in here. We can expect some very bad weather.' That's how they'll start thinking. Those numbers mean something to all of us in aviation."

For the instructor, a way to give back

Brayden carried around his papers from class, which detailed some parts of the airplane, as well as simplified aircraft motion, such as lift and weight, for a plane to rise and fall.

“My favorite part is going inside the airplane and learning about the different parts,” he said, pointing out the spinner and tail on his worksheet.

"(Aviation) is a big passion for him," said his mom, Anjye Williams. "He has a whole TikTok page dedicated to planes. He has a bunch of toy planes at home."

She said she found out about the program from a friend who knew her son was interested in aviation.

"I think it's an amazing program. He loves it," Anjye Williams said. "A lot of kids don't even know how to get into the aviation field, so the fact that they're doing this in Milwaukee, I thought that was really special."

She just wishes more families knew about this opportunity.

“It's something that's very worthwhile. Our goal of this program is to make these young people model citizens, whether they fly airplanes or not,” Allen said. “You know, everybody talks about giving back to the community. Well, this is how I give back.”

Contact Skyler Chun at schun@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @skylerchun_.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Charles Allen promotes faith, flight in free aviation program