Coastal Alabama Students Learn About Aviation--by Building a Plane

Starting next school year, Satsuma City Schools in Mobile County will begin Tango Flight, a two-year program where students learn how to—and actually build—a two-seater airplane.

“That’s a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) type of program, where the child will learn everything about aerospace. What makes a plane fly, to actually putting it together,” Tim Guinn, superintendent of Satsuma City Schools said. “From engine, to wheels, to the rudders, to the wings, the whole thing. And the neat thing about it is it will be a real plane, it will be licensed, it will be flown.”

Satsuma is the third school system in coastal Alabama to adopt the program. Tango Flight—a national nonprofit based in Texas—also works with B.C. Rain High School in the Mobile County Public School System and Gulf Shores High School, part of Gulf Shores City Schools. The three schools are the only ones in Alabama to participate in the program, which is capped at around 40 school districts nationwide.

Here’s how it works: students spend two years in a classroom, learning all of the academic skills around building an airplane. At the same time, the students are working on building the airplane—a Van’s Aircraft RV-12. Van’s Aircraft sends the school the materials needed to construct the plane as they progress, and when it’s completed, an inspector from the Federal Aviation Administration checks the plane to certify its airworthiness, according to Craig Anthony, director of development at Tango Flight.

“Tango Flight has a test pilot,” Guinn said, “and once it’s clear to their engineers and quality assurance, he will come down and take possession of the plane, and then he will test fly it. And when they give it the okay there, then the plane is good to be on the market.”

When the plane is sold, the profits go to Tango Flight to defray operating costs, Anthony said. Tango Flight’s Executive Director, Dan Weyant, does the first flight for every plane. And every student and administrator involved with the program gets to take a ride in the plane once it’s complete.

Tango Flight trains the instructor on how to teach the course, as well as several volunteer mentors, who work with the students throughout the building process. The volunteers don’t need to have any special training but typically have a background in engineering, mechanics or piloting.

Guinn says that the challenge for the next year will be finding volunteers to participate in the program, due to the large time commitment. Anthony says that Tango Flight works to identify people in the community that would be good volunteers.

Since the program was launched, several schools around the country have successfully built—and flown—airplanes. Anthony says that B.C. Rain, where Tango Flight is part of the school’s “Signature Academy” career technical training program, is in the process of building their second plane.

Satsuma schools will fund the program through local funds, Guinn said. Schools pay a refundable deposit for the airplane manufacturing kit and then a fee of $14,000 a year for the curriculum and instruction, Anthony said.

The program was started around 2016 by Weyant, Anthony says. The idea was to give kids hands on experience with physics and get more kids excited about aerospace, an in-demand field. Students in the program can apply their skills to a variety of careers, both in aerospace and outside of it.

“The hand-in-glove system excites students, keeps them motivated,” Anthony says. “It’s not single-purpose and single-use, there’s a lot of other things in it for students.”

And in Mobile, the demand for students with aerospace engineering knowledge is high. The expansion of Airbus’ facility at Brookley Aeroplex means that company is hiring an additional 1,000 people, in addition to Collins Aerospace in Foley and other aerospace firms in the area.

The Airbus Foundation is a sponsor of the Tango Flight program; Anthony says that the curriculum was initially developed in partnership with Airbus Americas’ engineering headquarters in Wichita, Kan., with professors from Wichita State University.

This isn’t the only career technical education program that Satsuma City Schools has: among other offerings, Satsuma High School offers a welding course and a popular nursing program, according to Guinn.

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