- December 4, 2025
Flagler Palm Coast High School Air Force Junior ROTC cadet Jasmine Vitkauskas participated in the intensive eight-week JROTC Flight Academy this summer and came home on July 24 with her private pilot’s certificate.
She had virtually no previous experience flying a plane before she began the program at Indiana Wesleyan University. Three weeks in, she was flying solo.
“When (the flight instructor) thought I was ready, he got out of the plane and it was just me in there. I was like, ‘Wow, I'm about to do this by myself.’ It was really weird, but it was also kind of freeing, because then it's just you and the plane,” she said. “You can make your own decisions, just knowing that everything you do is impacting how the plane is flying. So it's really a confidence booster. It's like, ‘Wow, I can do this.’”
Her experience in the program turned out to be even better than she expected, she said.
“I knew it was going to be awesome, but I didn't realize how awesome it was,” she said. “When I say, I didn't have a boring day, I did not have a boring day. I flew all the time.”
Vitkauskas first heard about about the Flight Academy during the summer before her sophomore year. But she couldn’t apply until she turned 17. Fellow FPC cadet Josh Fallon had just completed the program in which selected cadets receive full scholarships at an accredited aviation university.
“(Fallon) talked about his experience and he said it was really amazing, because he wanted to be a pilot and he had a whole plan from there,” Vitkauskas said. “I thought that could be me.”
Fallon is now entering his junior year in the Air Force ROTC program at Auburn University. He is planning to become a pilot in the Air Force, said Lt. Col. Melvin Baskerville, FPC’s senior JROTC instructor.
Vitkauskas applied for a spot in the Flight Academy earlier this year. Out of more than 1,200 cadets nationwide who applied this year, just 194 were accepted. Two were from FPC — Vitkauskas and Jillian Rivera, who graduated from FPC this spring.
Rivera is entering her freshman year at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. She earned her private pilot’s certificate in the Flight Academy at Delta State University in Mississippi.
The application process to the Flight Academy is rigorous and competitive.
“The cadets take an aviation qualification test and they also look at your grade point average and teacher and guidance counselor recommendations. They look at the whole-person concept for the students who earn this scholarship,” Baskerville said.
Vitkauskas will be taking a leadership role in FPC’s JROTC program as a senior this school year, Baskerville said. She will be deputy group commander, which is second in command of the school’s 145 cadets.
Earning her private pilot’s certificate through the Flight Academy’s accelerated program has improved her confidence, Baskerville said.
“She passed with flying colors and she was able to earn her wings,” he said.
Vitkauskas was one of 18 students in the program at Indiana Wesleyan.
“Obviously it was a way quicker pace than a lot of other private pilots who get their licenses,” she said. “It was a little more ground school rather than focusing on flying at first. So we usually flew one hour a day and did ground school for one hour a day, and we had an online portion of ground school. We learned the basics of flying. We learned about weather. We learned about different systems in the airplane. When we took our FAA written exam, all of us passed.
“There was a lot of studying involved," she said. "We got a lot of help from all the (certified flight instructors) and other cadets. We helped each other a lot. So, it was really nice getting that connection with other people working towards the same goal as you, because we were all very passionate about it. It was definitely a different environment that I enjoyed. Everybody passed their check ride too, so everyone is a private pilot, all 18 of us.”
The only flight experience she had going into the program was doing two Civil Air Patrol orientation flights at Flagler Executive Airport. The Civil Air Patrol provides the opportunity for FPC cadets to fly with an instructor in a Cessna 172. The instructor flies two cadets at a time.
“They’ll all get their hands on the flight controls and fly the plane with an instructor/pilot on board,” Baskerville said.
That experience gave Vitkauskas her motivation to become a pilot. Her next step, she said, is to earn other ratings, such as her instrument rating. Her goal is to become a commercial pilot and eventually work her way up to becoming an Airline Transportation Pilot, the highest level of pilot certification.
Right now she is looking for ways to get more flight experience.
“Obviously the scholarship was completely free,” she said. “Right now my family and I are figuring out how I can continue flying and get started on my other ratings. My goal is to fly at least once a month. But we still have to figure out how exactly I can to do that. We are currently researching.”
