South Whidbey Flying Club pilots flew in the annual Thunder Run, practicing coordination of emergency services in the event of a disaster on Whidbey Island.
One of the three planes making the run was Scarlett—a popular red Cessna 150 Aerobat—flown by two young women who flew in their first Thunder Run round-trip from the Whidbey Airpark to Skagit Regional Airport.
Pilot McKaela Meffert, accompanied by 17-year-old Kailea Bravo, flew in Scarlett, owned by Fred Lundahl, who runs the South Whidbey Flying Club. Fred has taught more than two hundred students how to fly over the past 60 years.
“McKaela Meffert was one of Scarlett’s students five or six years ago,” said Fred, as we sat out on the landing field at Whidbey Airpark on a warm sunny Saturday. “McKaela graduated from Coupeville’s Running Start program, and earned a full ride pilot scholarship from Alaska Airlines to fly in Oregon. She finished in April. She returned home and is now instructing in our flying club, and helping start a flying club up at Oak Harbor. She is the pilot in command of today’s flight.”
“We couldn’t have done it without Fred—he’s incredible,” said McKaela after her successful round-trip flight to Skagit Regional Airport.
Kailea flies Scarlett in preparation for earning her pilot’s license.
“Kailea Bravo is in the Coupeville Running Start program, McKaela is her flight instructor,” added Fred. “Kailea is two-thirds of her way through in getting tested for her license.”
Kailea mentioned her upcoming solo “cross-country” flight. In this case cross-country is not across the U.S., but a 50 mile trip to and from a location such as Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula.
Kailea is also the first of Scarlett’s students to solo entering the Whidbey Airpark runway from the north; a tricky maneuver.
“I’m the only person to do their first solo on Runway 16—it’s very hard to do,” said Kailea, sharing her thrill of the experience.
Fred explained that rows of trees lining the airstrip are narrower when approaching from the north, and the skill of navigating is usually reserved for more experienced pilots.
“When you see the airport, especially when flying in Scarlett, you might say, this looks like my grandpa’s driveway in the woods,” said Fred. “The trees on the south end are farther from the runway than at the north end. Everybody that usually does their first solo practice landing to the north. Only later do we get them to practice landing to the south. You break the first solo to a student as a surprise. Everyone freaks out and says, I’m not ready. I tell them I’m on the radio for when they take off and land.”
Because of the wind challenges one day, and Fred’s confidence in Kailea’s skills at flying, Fred asked Kailea to take her solo flight and enter the airstrip from the north.
“Kailea was doing well enough landing over all those trees,” added Fred. “She had no idea none of my students had landed to the south. I felt she was that good. The other fun fact, is she’s the first student I’ve had to use Meta AI Glasses that record what you see. By wearing these while flying, you can go over the lesson and go over what you did right or wrong. Meta glasses connect via Bluetooth, and will talk to you and warn you about other planes, and record what you are saying.”
Kilea’s recording using Meta AI glasses 2-27-26
Tara Rudolph, who owns the Whidbey Airpark with her husband Sky Rudolph, purchased the private airport in late 2016. The airport has participated in the Thunder Run exercise the past four years.
“This Thunder Run uses aircraft to move resources during a large scale emergency,” said Tara.
The Thunder Run program launched in the state in 2009 with volunteer pilots organizing to collaborate with other emergency service providers in the event of a major earthquake. Its website notes:
“Thunder Run is an exercise to demonstrate the impact general aviation can have in emergency response,” notes Thunder Run’s webpage. “It is a part of the Northwest EVAC (Emergency Volunteer Air Corps) which in turn is part of the national EVAC Emergency Volunteer Air Corps. Emergency Volunteer Air Corps (EVAC) is a nationwide effort to promote and coordinates effective and useful additional General Aviation volunteer participation in emergency relief efforts, especially following disasters.”
Whidbey Island pilots formed a Disaster Airlift Response Team—DART—coordinating with Island County and other agencies, and first took part in an emergency practice in 2021, flying to Bellingham. A 2022 article in The Whidbey News Times quotes the late Ron Conlin, aviation coordinator for the Island County Department of Emergency Management:
“DART is made up of volunteer pilots who want to work together to help the community in case of a disaster. This is especially important in a place like Whidbey Island and because FEMA could be busy tackling the main metropolitan areas first.”
This year Jordan Boyer was on board to take Ron Conlin’s place.
“This is our first year without Ron Conlin,” said Jordan. “We worked together with Red Cross. Ron said if something happens to me, you have to be sure everything goes right. I’ll do my best today. We do this once a year.”
On the ground awaiting delivery of donated non-perishable food, along with household items such as toilet paper, baby wipes and other essentials were volunteers who loaded the Good Cheer truck with boxes of goods. For this practice run, Good Cheer was the recipient of the Thunder Run’s round-trip drills to pick up resources.
Additionally on the ground were John Becker—training and exercise coordinator for Island County’s Dept. of Emergency Management, Island County Commissioner Melanie Bacon, South Whidbey Fire/EMS, volunteers with CERT—the island’s Community Emergency Response Team, South Whidbey Prepares volunteers, Red Cross volunteers and ham radio operators with the Island County Amateur Radio Club.
“This is a training and exercise for tracking resources coming in, and requesting resources in the event of an emergency,” said John Becker. “Auxiliary communication would coordinate requests. We work mainly with CERT, and this is organized by the local Disaster Air Response Team.”
New this year were sets of solar panels powering ham radios and laptops.
Dan Matlock, one of the ham radio volunteers, explained: “We wanted to see if we could run the entire operation on solar panels to power our radios. They can. We’ve got a nice sunny day. The panels are mine, and put out 60 watts each. That’s enough to power radios and laptops to communicate with others.
“A second new aspect is to keep track of planes coming and going,” added Dan. “At Melanie Bacon’s suggestion, we incorporated radios from General Mobile Radio Service. Those radios are used by South Whidbey Prepares. They’re being trained with help from our ham radio club.”
The next emergency preparedness program is planned Aug. 4th—National Night Out—in Langley.
Meanwhile, Whidbey Telecom/Whidbey TV prepared a video on earthquake preparedness.
South Whidbey Prepares offers a number of training classes. Visit its webpage here.
To learn more about the Whidbey Airpark, visit this webpage.