First and foremost, happy Veterans Day and a big thank you to all who have served, and to all who have supported our military. Veterans Take Flight (VTF) is a work in progress; however, I felt it was appropriate to launch the website on Veterans Day. In this initial post, I want to explain what sparked the creation of VTF, provide some background on myself, and explain my vision for VTF and what I hope it will be able to do for veterans interested in aviation.
My name is Joel Matteson, and I'm a private pilot who is passionate about all aspects of aviation. My beautiful wife and I are both veterans, she served in the Army National Guard, and I served 14 years of active duty with the Air Force. Although aviation is my passion, it has always been a hobby for me. I chose federal law enforcement as my career path and will likely remain in that field until retirement. If there were ever a chance for me to merge my law enforcement career with aviation, I would jump on the opportunity, but for now, flying will remain a hobby.
I completed my bachelors and graduate degree while I was active duty. I still had 100% of my post 9/11 GI Bill to use for further education benefits. I earned my private pilot certificate in 2002 and always planned on using my veterans benefits to acquire more ratings in hopes of becoming a Certified Flight Instructor (CFI). If you look at the Veterans Affairs Education website, it says the GI Bill can be used for flight training as long as you have already earned your Private Pilot Certificate. When I was finally at a point in life where I had time to devote to getting further flight training, I realized there were many other restrictions and limitations on the use of the GI Bill for flight training. These limitations will be discussed in detail in future posts as I work through the process, and I hope you will follow along with me.
I became frustrated not only by the limitations imposed by the GI Bill benefits but by the lack of knowledge flight schools had on how to process a student using the GI Bill to pay for flight training. I reached out to well-known CFIs and flight schools in different parts of the country as well as locally, all of which had different interpretations of how the GI Bill could be used for training, what it would cost me out of pocket and what would be covered by the GI Bill. The more I talked to people, the more I realized there was a lack of education and understanding of the process overall, and I decided then that I was going to create a community that would help de-mystify the process. I wanted to create a central location where veterans interested in using their GI Bill for flight training could get accurate, current information, to help them plan and achieve their goals.
The more I talked about creating this community, the more I realized so much more could be done to help veterans pursue their aviation dreams. As I will explain in detail in future posts, although the GI Bill provides an amazing opportunity to veterans by assisting with costs of their flight training, there are still a lot of costs not covered. I hope that Veterans Take Flight will provide several avenues that will assist veterans with those inevitable out of pocket costs.
I encourage you to subscribe and follow me in my journey through earning further pilot ratings using my military benefits and together we will explore and develop ways to make the process of becoming a pilot easier and more affordable for any veteran who has dreamt of earning their wings.