Eight students from Liberty University’s School of Aeronautics traveled to Alaska for specialized flight training and community outreach through LU Send.
The two-week trip sent students and staff to the Chickaloon and Soldotna communities near Anchorage in July 2026. Students served local communities and received flight training in arctic conditions.
Junior Giovanni Coleman shared his experience as one of the eight aviation students who participated in the trip.
“I would say the three things I wanted to get out of it was to see Alaska, to grow in my flight training experience in a different environment … (and) to learn and experience mission aviation firsthand,” Coleman said.
Coleman described the many challenges involved with flying in the Alaskan environment. He emphasized the importance of planning before flights, noting that the weather was often difficult to prepare for, alongside other factors that could impact the flight.
“I think the big thing is planning, and weather planning specifically. Looking at the weather (in Virginia), we have different weather patterns,” Coleman said. “But going to Alaska, not necessarily knowing what the weather patterns look like, was a little bit interesting.”
When not performing in-flight training, students completed community service hours by building protective shelters for the kayaks and small boats of local communities. Alaska has the smallest population density in the United States, so community outreach was a difficult but important goal of the mission.
Benjamin Yates, one of the staff members overseeing the students on the trip, shared how a variety of different skill sets helped serve the local communities in Alaska, opening the hearts and minds of the students.
“It was a really beautiful space to celebrate the hearts of how … we can serve,” Yates said.
The trip offered students a chance to discover how aviation can be incorporated into missionary work and introduced them to unique career options for after graduation. Returning from the trip, Coleman reflected on his goals for the future after his experience.
“I definitely want to support missions aviation … If I don’t go (the) missions aviation route, maybe I go airlines or something like that where I have more funds,” Coleman said. “I definitely want to support people wanting to go on the field … but specifically through aviation.”
For more information on these trips or other trips LU Send has to offer, visit https://www.liberty.edu/osd/lu-send.
Bishop is a news reporter for The Liberty Champion.