Actor Harrison Ford, an enthusiastic pilot and longtime advocate for general aviation, will receive this year’s Al Ueltschi Humanitarian Award at the opening general session of NBAA’s Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition in Las Vegas.
An outspoken champion for general aviation, Ford has testified before Congress and flown humanitarian aid missions in the aircraft he owns. He has also thrown his star power behind the Cessna Special Olympics Airlift, which provides free transportation for athletes to the Special Olympics USA National Games each year, and flies cancer patients to treatment centers through the Corporate Angel Network.
Since earning his private pilot certificate in 1996, Ford has also given many young people their first taste of the excitement of aviation through the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Young Eagles program, and served as the program’s chairman for more than five years. In 2010, the National Aeronautic Association honored Ford with the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy for his many contributions to aviation as an accomplished pilot, aviation industry advocate, humanitarian and mentor.
Created in 2006, NBAA’s Humanitarian Award is named for Albert L. Ueltschi, the founder of FlightSafety International who dedicated his life to many philanthropic causes, most notably in the development of non-profit Orbis flying eye hospital, which uses a DC-10 to provide treatment in impoverished parts of the world.
Past recipients of the award include FedEx founder Fred Smith; former U.S. Senate majority leader, surgeon and humanitarian pilot Bill Frist; the donors and volunteers in the business aviation community who responded to the humanitarian crisis in Haiti following a devastating earthquake; the Corporate Angel Network; the Veterans Airlift Command; Cessna, in recognition of the Cessna Citation Special Olympics Airlift (2006) and others.
The NBAA 2013 opening general session will take place Tuesday, October 22 at 8:30 a.m. at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
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