Area students take flight

SANDPOINT — What better way to teach kids some real-life technical skills than by building an actual airplane, which after more than a year of hard work by local students is scheduled to take flight in the spring. 

"Students who are working on it, they're learning a lot more than just how to use tools and drilling rivets," said Ken Larson, co-founder of the North Idaho High School Aerospace Program in Sandpoint. "With almost every student there we've seen a certain amount of growth and a development and maturity. But more than that, what we are seeing is just an incredible amount of teamwork and attention to detail."

The plane, a Zenith Zodiac CH601XL, was a kit airplane donated to the NIHSA program's Aces Aviation Workshop.

Building the plane has gone in phases, Larson said. The first phase was an inventory of every piece of the plane to make sure everything was there, was the right size and was installed correctly.

"That was horribly tedious and we lost some students because of that," Larson said. "The students who stuck with us through that are troopers."

Due to Federal Aviation Administration mandated redesign of certain parts of the plane, the wings and part of the fuselage had to be rebuilt. So the second phase of the project consisted of taking the wings apart. The students learned how to remove the skins, which required drilling out rivets. Larson said this was also a tedious area because if a rivet was mis-drilled, it could ruin the entire skin of the wing.

The third phase was putting the wings back together.

"They really got a good look inside there and a lot of good practice doing the wings," said David Francis, aircraft maintenance technician.

Francis said besides rebuilding the wings, much of the project was assembly and fitting, which is the fourth phase, and the students were installing flight controls around mid-December.

"We are in that stage of 90 percent complete, 50 percent to go," Francis said.

As a certified A&P mechanic, Francis is helping to rebuild an engine that was donated for the airplane, which Larson said came in four plastic totes, all in pieces. Some of the pieces were missing and some were unusable, but the students have helped with that part of the project as well. Larson said a few of the students spent days just cleaning engine parts.

The dedication the students put into the program is what will put that plane in the air in a few months.

"They have really learned how to do things exactly right," Larson said.

He said there has been occasions where students have messed up and drilled a hole wrong or other small mistakes, but have always come forward, admitted their mistake and figured out a solution.

The NIHSA program consists of three main sections, including the Aces Aviation Workshop where the students are building the plane, as well as ground school — a regular class held at Sandpoint High School where students get credit to learn to the basic information they need for pilot training — and then flight training, where the students learn how to fly a plane.

Between the three sections of NIHSA, about 40 students from Sandpoint Middle School, Sandpoint High School, Forrest Bird Charter School, Northwest Academy and home-school participate in the program.

"It's a high school club, but our vice-president was 12 years old ... he was a sixth-grader when he was elected vice-president," Larson said. "He was just so active in coming to class and working with other people."

Larson said the older students work with the younger ones really well, and while there is often disagreements about how something should be done, he has never seen students be rude or offensive to each other.

Nick Butcher, a 15-year-old Sandpoint High School freshman, started in the program when he was in middle school and has worked on the plane since the project started.

"I've alway been interested in airplanes since I was a little kid," Butcher said.

Both of Butcher's grandparents on one side of his family worked for Trans World Airlines, and on the other side, several family members worked at Lockheed, a global security and aerospace company.

"I would like to continue the family legacy and go into the airline industry — obviously not TWA though," Butcher said.

TWA merged with American Airlines in 2001.

Through the NIHSA program, students can get their pilot's license. A sport pilot license, for flying light sport planes like the Zodiac the students are building, requires a minimum of 20 hours of flight training. The model currently in use for flight training is the same model as the plane they are building. 

"The students really have an appreciation for the plane they are flying because they know what's inside there — because they built one," Larson said.

A minimum of 40 hours of flight training is required for a private pilot license. Both require a knowledge exam and a checkride with an FAA inspector. 

In the four years since the program started, Larson can recall many success stories of students who participated. One student was ready to drop out of high school as a junior, Larson said, but graduated after finding an interest in aerospace through the program. One of the first students he flew with, Maggie Kircher, came back as an instructor pilot last summer for NIHSA after she went through an aviation program to get all her ratings and instructor license. 

Daniel Spencer, 16, is a Sandpoint High School student who, after picking up a flier for the program in August, took a flight with Kircher about a month later.

"I haven’t had time to do any more flights because I live on a farm, so when the weather is good we have to be out," Spencer said. "But now the crops are in, so hopefully I will be able to do more flight lessons."

Spencer was in the Young Eagles program before signing up with NIHSA and said he has always been interested in flying and plans to become a bush pilot in Alaska. 

Another of Larson's first students, Zack Ward, became an aircraft loadmaster in the United States Air Force Reserves. Others are currently in college in mechanical engineering, aviation and aircraft maintenance technician programs.

"What we are trying to become is the bridge for these students between school and the aerospace industry," Larson said.

Larson said local organizations have been supportive financially, but with the hangar rental and insurance for the plane project and flight training, funds are tight. He said they would like to get pledges from the aerospace industry to cover some of the basic minimum expenses, but any help from the community is welcome as well.

For any students interested in the program, there is still time to register for the ground school class at Sandpoint High School.

It is not required to take the class to do flight training or Aces. A lot of the training is one-on-one, Larson said. During the class, Larson said they take field trips to places like Quest Aircraft Company in Sandpoint or Empire Airlines in Hayden. He said the field trips are for the existing students in the class but the others in the program are always invited.

"We invite all of them to participate when we have guest speakers and field trips," Larson said. "We are trying to make it as inclusive as possible.

Information: highschoolaerospace.org and pilottrainingnw.com