Volunteer Pilot Flies for Eco Missions with SouthWings

From the flight levels to low-level missions, SouthWings pairs pilots with projects to help the environment.

Tuesday, March 08, 2022 at 12:22 PM ET

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Retired airline pilot Les Abend flew the SouthWings mission with SouthWings passengers Virginia Richard and chef Dana Honn in his Piper Arrow. [Courtesy: Les Abend]

Key Takeaways:

A retired airline pilot volunteers with SouthWings, an environmental advocacy group that utilizes private aircraft and volunteer pilots to provide aerial observations of industrial and land development impacts on the environment, primarily over bodies of water.
Motivated by a desire to "pay it forward" after a long career, the author found SouthWings to be a suitable and rewarding volunteer opportunity for his Piper Arrow, as other aviation-related volunteer roles were less compatible.
The volunteering experience, while presenting unique challenges like transposing coordinates and navigating busy airspace, offers the gratification of contributing to environmental causes, a new perspective on familiar areas, and a supportive environment respecting pilot discretion for safety.

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A glance at the Garmin GNS 430 display indicated that a westerly course change was about to be directed via GPSS to the S-Tec autopilot. I sat with arms folded in the left seat of my Piper Arrow, a content grin on my face even at our altitude of 1,500 feet. I continued my vigilance—or maybe paranoia—in scanning the earth below, considering potential emergency landing spots. A water landing was always a possibility; fortunately, it was relatively shallow here.

We were just underneath a broken stratus layer, dancing along a small section of the Louisiana coastline at the fringes of the Gulf of Mexico. How many times had I flown over this area in transit to Florida at FL 390 with nary a second thought about its significance?