The Air Force Academy says it defines character as “one’s moral compass; the sum of those qualities of moral excellence which move a person to do the right thing despite pressures to the contrary.”

Currently, the right thing for this cadet, and the next, is to take one small step forward. The pressure is that the step is into open air, 55 feet above the ground, with a downward plummet to surely follow.

“One … two … two … three.”

He closes his eyes and falls, but the plummet is short-lived. The bungee cord clipped to his harness pulls taut, and he descends more slowly to the ground with a smile and arms outstretched.

Today, a portion of the academy’s rising sophomores, the Class of 2025, is navigating the Center for Character and Leadership Development’s new outdoor leadership tower, which replaces the base’s wooden ropes challenge used since 1997. A combination of individual and team training challenges have been designed to augment the CCLD’s purpose of forging cadets’ skills in critical thinking, teamwork, innovation and leadership.

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The tower, rigged with a rappelling element and ropes course, erupts out of a clearing within a wooded area not far from the academy’s sports complexes. It boasts three total platforms that support a winding staircase, a web of loose ropes and a series of suspended wooden obstacles. More than 700 cadets have completed this training course since the tower opened on June 2.

After the summer, squadrons, clubs, organizations, faculty and others on base will be able to schedule time on the tower.

Another cadet rappels from the top platform, this time facing backward. One more strains to reach the next swinging rung of a sideways ladder with little other support than that coming from a classmate holding the securing rope below.

“You’re almost there,” she assures. “Stay balanced.”

Kristina Book, instructor of adventure and experiential learning and the manager of the academy’s Outdoor Leadership Complex, says the tower helps simulate what she calls the “crucible experience,” when one must execute a mission under pressure and mitigate physical and emotional response to that pressure.

“What does (being high off the ground) elicit physiologically as well as mentally, and how do we work through that?” she says over the clanging of carabiners on metal poles. “There’s other things that (airmen) experience that may have similar biological or mental responses. So, if we can work on understanding that here, then it’s gonna be easier to deal with that in more of those mission-critical situations that they may find themselves in later.”

Cadets Asha Swann and Tristan Trax stand before a grand view of the mountains on the see-through floor of the top platform as they await their jumps. Swann had jumped a moment before. “I stepped forward, so it was a little nerve-wracking looking at the ground right in front of me, but it was super-cool,” she says.

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Trax says the outdoor element is the most rewarding aspect of instruction, as it allows cadets hands-on experience not only in communication and teamwork but in physical maneuvers required in combat.

“It seems fun but in actuality, it may help with other aspects,” he says. “If you were to go different routes in the armed forces, you may have to rappel out of a helicopter.”

Others are less confident about the process.

“This is actually terrifying,” a cadet says as he traverses eight boards spaced apart like a kind of floating hopscotch, four stories high.

He and his classmate huddle on one of the tower’s tallest crow’s nests before being coaxed onto the next apparatus.

“Use each other,” an instructor yells from below. “Let go of your rope.”

The two grab each other’s arms to stabilize their balance, and the classmate murmurs something between laughs.

“This is not romantic,” the other says. “This is terrifying.”

Given their academy of choice, it is little wonder that these cadets spend an above-average amount of time getting familiar with higher altitudes.

Col. Kurt Wendt, director of the CCLD, says cadets are expected to cope with more extreme heights or circumstances, as when parachuting from a plane or into a pool from a 10-meter-high board during water training.

He watches the handful of cadets from the mulch below. “This gives them an opportunity to visualize and sort of overcome those fears before they face them.”

The tower’s 21st-century design process was completed in 2021, when the academy examined potential interest for funding by public-private partnership.

Wendt says alumni from the AFA Class of 1963 “latched” onto the project and have since given $1.07 million toward the tower. The other $1.10 million came from the Dorothy D. and Joseph A. Moller Foundation trust at the Association of Graduates, the academy said.

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Wendt says the tower’s “flash to bang” was quick, with construction beginning in August and ending in May.

Retired Col. Hank Hoffman is a member of the class and nods his head emphatically as Wendt says the tower was an “easy sell.”

“You don’t have to convince cadets that this is going to be a good time.” Wendt says. “You don’t have to convince cadets that they’re going to not only learn about leadership and character, but they’re going to enjoy themselves. They’re excited about it.”

Retired Gen. Bill Ball, an officer for the 1963 class, treads around the base and grins at the scene above. His class was the AFA’s fifth graduating class but the first to enter at the academy’s current location.

The tower, in a way, has been nearly 60 years in the making. Ball says the class got word of the need for a new ropes challenge and immediately wanted to donate the money the class had been pooling for decades.

“Our class decided that that’s exactly the kind of gift we’d like to fund,” he says.

Ball says the tower will be dedicated on Aug. 10, 2023, when cadets will demonstrate their training on the ropes and the Class of 1963 will hold a presentation in honor of fellow graduate Ron Fogleman, the first academy graduate to become chief of staff of the Air Force. The event will also fall on the class’s 60th reunion.

“I think it’ll be quite an occasion to come here and see this, and maybe even walk up a stair or two,” he says, chuckling.

But Ball doesn’t wait for next year before ascending more than a stair or two up, making it all the way to the platform. He shuffles slowly but confidently to the edge and steps off, to the cheers of cadets from just one of many classes to use the tower in years to come.