PeerConnect: Able Flight

Charles Stites

Charles Stites founded Able Flight and serves as its executive director. A graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill with a degree in media production, Stites served as a corporate television writer and producer for several decades before becoming an aviation writer and photographer for U.S. and European publications. In 2006, his work in aviation led him to see an opportunity to create a nonprofit that would make it possible for people with physical disabilities to become licensed pilots by providing scholarships, mentoring and training, and Able Flight was born. Since then nearly 90 people have become licensed pilots through Able Flight. Able Flight pilots included people facing the challenge of paralysis and other conditions, and wounded and disabled veterans. Charles is married to a retired high school teacher, is the father of two and the grandfather of five. He has been a pilot for more than forty years and flies a restored 1949 Ryan Navion.