PALM COAST / AVIATION / INSPIRATION
Jack Howell
Something real
to fly toward.
By Rob Urban
An airplane has very little interest in whether you were having a difficult morning.
It still needs to be checked. The weather still matters. The fuel calculation still has to be right. For a teenager learning to fly, that can be an imposing set of responsibilities. It can also be an unusually clear invitation: learn the work, take it seriously, and you can become capable of doing this.
Retired Marine Corps Colonel Jack Howell has spent years extending that invitation through Teens-In-Flight in Palm Coast. His organization opens aviation opportunities to young people, including children of military families and first responders, and teenagers who might otherwise have no way to afford flight training.
The airplane is a powerful draw. Howell’s interest goes considerably further than getting someone airborne.
The teacher
inside the colonel.
Howell’s background brought him into contact with families at exceptionally difficult moments. As a casualty assistance officer, he saw the consequences of injury and death in military service. As a teacher in inner-city high schools, he worked with young people carrying pressures that did not remain conveniently outside the classroom.
The organization’s account of its beginnings connects those experiences to his decision to use aviation as a way into education and mentoring. The idea first took shape as a Jacksonville high school magnet program in 1994, then developed into a nonprofit aerospace education organization in 2008 with help from aviation supporters Steve Price and Joel Weaner.
That history matters because this was an educational idea before it became the familiar image of a teenager beside a small plane. Howell was thinking about what could attract a student’s attention and then reward sustained effort. Aviation supplied a subject large enough to hold both the excitement and the work that followed it.
In his own 2016 account of the project, Howell described thirteen years teaching Marine Corps Junior ROTC after active-duty service. He also described experience in air traffic control, airfield operations and aviation education. His knowledge of flying came with an understanding of the systems and people that make it possible.
I find that combination more interesting than the image of a lone pilot. A flight is the visible result of a great deal of preparation. The person who understands that can teach a student to look beyond the dramatic moment and take pride in the less dramatic work supporting it.
The checklist
is part of
the lesson.
In a 2016 Palm Coast Observer interview, Howell explained that his emphasis included life skills and accountability. He described using preflight checks to test whether students were paying close attention, then addressing what they had missed.
The point was not an abstract lecture about responsibility. Students were learning why an overlooked detail matters in the activity they wanted to do. That relationship between effort and consequence can make a lesson considerably harder to ignore.
The same report covered his decision to extend the program to children of law enforcement families after the killings of officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. He saw a connection between their circumstances and those of the military families he already understood. An established program gave him a way to respond with something more durable than a statement of sympathy.
What aviation does provide is a sequence of tasks that can be learned. A student studies, practices with an instructor, makes corrections and gradually earns greater responsibility. Progress has visible substance. The adult’s encouragement is connected to demonstrated skill.
There is also a useful change in the conversation. A young person who has repeatedly been asked about a loss or a hardship gets to discuss navigation, an aircraft or the next lesson. Their circumstances remain part of their life, but they also have an expanding subject on which they know something and can learn more.
Opportunity needs
a working engine.
Teens-In-Flight’s current training information describes ground and flight instruction for teenagers and adults, with limited scholarships for eligible young people. It lists discovery flights and ground-school options, making clear that the organization also operates within the ordinary economics of aviation.
Scholarship availability is finite. Fuel, maintenance and instruction cost money. The mission depends on finding ways to bring those costs within reach for students who need assistance.
Howell’s older fundraising appeal is instructive for precisely that reason. It asked for help rebuilding an aircraft engine. After explaining the mission and his reasons for caring about it, he arrived at a mechanical requirement: the plane had to remain usable.
There is a whole category of generosity that looks like that. It pays for the thing that allows the more visible thing to happen. A donor may never meet the student whose next lesson depends on a repair, but the connection is direct.
The board page identifies Howell as founder and board president and includes people with aviation, legal, communications and public-service experience. It also states that board members are uncompensated. The organization has to bring together different forms of expertise to keep an ambitious opportunity grounded in the work necessary to provide it.
The student’s opportunity depends on people who know different parts of the work, and who can rely on one another to do them well.
A first person to ask.
A first set of skills.
In Abe Mills’ June 2026 Palm Coast Observer report, the work becomes wonderfully specific. Sixteen students were taking part in a two-week camp. Ground school and the written exam were covered, along with three hours in an aircraft and three hours in an approved simulator. Camp director Jamie Handy described introducing aviation to students who often had no pilot in the family.
That last detail matters. People discover possible careers through the adults around them. When no one in a family flies, even knowing what to ask can be difficult. A camp can provide a first set of people to ask, as well as a first set of skills.
Danielle Anderson’s reporting for Flagler News Weekly gives the effort more faces. Handy developed the curriculum. CareerSource Brevard Flagler Volusia helped fund twelve students, with support for the wider program also coming from the Heiser Foundation, the Ray Foundation and community donors. Removing the tuition bill required people to build both the instruction and the means to pay for it.
More than
one way
forward.
The organization’s introductions to student stories include accounts of young people finding leadership, accomplishment and new career interests through the program. Its homepage also highlights former instructors and participants who went on to military and commercial aviation roles.
A young person might discover a lifelong interest in flight, an occupation elsewhere in aviation, or simply the satisfaction of mastering something demanding. The value does not have to collapse into one destination.
There is a natural connection to Winston Scott’s story elsewhere in this series: aviation skill develops through repeated preparation, and experienced people can make that world more accessible to someone coming next. Howell works near the beginning of that path, where a possibility is still becoming believable.
I admire Howell’s confidence in what young people can learn when the opportunity is real. Encouragement becomes more convincing when it arrives with instruction, time to practice and someone willing to explain the next difficult thing. The student gets evidence of their own ability that they can carry beyond an adult’s kind words.
At some point, the work on the ground becomes a flight. That moment belongs to the student, with an instructor’s preparation and an organization’s support behind it. Howell has spent years helping make that moment possible, while giving young people a reason to keep preparing for the next one.
About Jack Howell and Teens-In-Flight
Who is Jack Howell?
Jack Howell is a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel, aviation educator, and the founder and board president of Teens-In-Flight in Palm Coast, Florida.
When did Teens-In-Flight begin?
The program began in 1994 as a Jacksonville high school magnet program. It developed into a nonprofit aerospace education organization in March 2008.
Does Teens-In-Flight offer scholarships?
Its training information lists limited scholarships for eligible young people, including children of military and first-responder families. The organization also offers paid ground and flight instruction for teenagers and adults.
Sources: Teens-In-Flight’s history, training and board pages; Howell’s 2016 fundraising account; Jacque Estes’ 2016 and Abe Mills’ 2026 Palm Coast Observer reports; and Danielle Anderson’s June 2026 Flagler News Weekly reporting. Checked September 2026. Reflections are Rob Urban’s.
I write about people who make a possibility practical. For more of my work, or a conversation about the story behind yours, meet Rob.