Leah,

I dont know very much about flying and might be a little off track here but have you tried the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) ?

I train a search and rescue dog and we work with CAP from time to time, they fly us and our dogs to search sites and we also do downed aircraft drills, locating aircraft and searching for survivors etc. Reason i mention it is i know that CAP owns the planes but everyone works like us on a volenteer basis. It might be worth checking to see if you can work with and learn something from them, see if they have any flight training programs.

Everyone i've met and worked with at the minnesota CAP has been great.

Good luck to you!

Pete