AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS

COPA Rene Cutforth Memorial Scholarship

The new COPA Rene Cutforth Memorial Scholarship celebrates the life, passion, and commitment of lifetime COPA member Rene Cutforth. The scholarship provides $1,000 each year to help female pilots pursuing their CPL or other additional ratings.

The scholarship was introduced in 2025 in partnership with Elevate Aviation and is generously supported by Elevate Aviation.

COPA Rene Cutforth Memorial Scholarship Photo 2

Apply for the scholarship

Applications for the 2026 COPA Scholarship Program are open from December 15, 2025 until 11:59 p.m. ET on Friday, March 13, 2026

Note: the application portal requires a separate login from your COPA membership account. You can set up your application portal with the same credentials as your COPA membership, but the application is on an external portal.

Apply Now

Make a donation

Interested in contributing to the future of General Aviation? COPA’S Flight Safety Foundation, which supports all its scholarship opportunities exclusively rely upon the generous donations of our flying community. To make a donation and to support a new generation of deserving flyers, please visit the following link:

Donate Today

To inquire about starting a memorial scholarship fund, please reach out to COPA at copa@copanational.org

Criteria & Conditions

Eligible Applicants

  • costs of ground school, including books and required materials for the courses;
  • costs of instructor time and training aircraft;
  • the direct flight training portion of tuition in programs offered by secondary or post-secondary schools, including colleges and universities.

Ineligible Applicants

  • To ensure that as many aviators can benefit, recipients of COPA scholarships and bursaries from previous years are not eligible to re-apply.

Recipient Conditions

COPA will coordinate the designated training through Coastal Drone, our pre-approved RPAS ground school. This designated training facility will provide instructional materials. The successful applicant is to pay for the Transport Canada exam and COPA will reimburse this expense.  

The scholarship amount is the maximum that will be paid by COPA from the fund for any advanced licenses, ratings or endorsement(s) being pursued and may not be used for any purposes other than those approved in the eligible costs section of these guidelines. 

Unused amounts at the completion of training, if any, will remain in COPA’s funds for future awards. COPA may exercise judgment as to whether training can be deferred for a reasonable period (beyond one year) and which courses are eligible for payment under these guidelines.  

Winning candidates agree to participate in future COPA promotional activities.

Training shall be completed in a reasonable period of time, usually not longer than one year from commencement. In the event the recipient does not make satisfactory progress or does not conduct himself/herself in a manner consistent with the intention of the Fund, COPA shall have the right to revoke the award and to cease paying any further costs of training. Progress reports from the training facility will be provided to COPA as required.

Eligible Expenses

  • costs of ground school
  • Transport Canada exam expenses (recipient of the scholarship will be reimbursed after paying for the exam)

Costs Not Covered:

  • Non flight training tuition costs at secondary or post-secondary schools, including colleges and universities. Those seeking assistance with such costs should apply to the Scholarship and bursary programs usually available through those institutions. (E.g., Scholarships cannot be used to pay any part of the tuition of a college or university program where flight training costs are subsidized).
  • Personal meals or transportation to and from the training facility.
  • Clothing.
  • Aviation equipment or supplies which are not required for the program (ex: headsets, flight bags, e-tablets, etc).

Funds will only be disbursed to the flight school, not directly to the recipient, and can only be used to cover training costs incurred after the awarding of the scholarship. Training completed prior to the scholarship award is not eligible for funding.