The Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees on Aug. 20 gave its final seal of approval on a new course that will allow students to learn the avionics, mechanics, aerodynamics and other aspects of building a plane.
And they will do just that, with a functional airplane they will all get to take a ride in.
The class at Pajaro Valley High School is called Engineering Design: Flight, Aerospace, Systems, & Technology.
It is a partnership between the district, the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 119 and Georgetown, Texas-based Tango Flight, Inc., which will provide the curriculum and academic support for the instructor.
Tango Director of Development Craig Anthony says that careers in aviation are high-paying, and despite the likelihood that artificial intelligence will be flying planes in the future, there will always be the need for people to build and maintain airplanes.
And to step in to fly them when computers fail.
“Human interface and human interaction is vitally important,” Anthony said. “These jobs are well-paying, and they are jobs that aren’t going to go away anytime soon.”
The kit airplane they’ll be building—a two-seater RV-12iS manufactured by Aurora, Ore.-based Van’s Aircraft—takes approximately 700 hours, roughly two school years, to build, Anthony said.
At the end, after the Federal Aviation Administration has cleared the plane for flight and Tango founder Dan Weyant has taken it for its maiden voyage, the students, instructors and district administrators will get a chance to take a ride.
Tango, an educational nonprofit created to introduce students to the world of aviation and aerospace, has similar programs in 46 school districts nationwide. It is the only one of its kind in the U.S.
Anthony said that the program—which will be overseen by PVUSD’s Career Technical Education department—is rare in that it allows students of all stripes to work together.
This includes those that are aiming for a trade straight out of high school, ones planning to study engineering in college and looking to join the military.
“We’re providing them with knowledge of classroom teaching, training and instruction,” he said. “And it all comes together around that building that airplane.”
Under the contract with Tango, PVUSD will pay a one-time “partnership fee” of $114,962, and an annual program fee of $16,873.
The district will also pay a one-time fee of $16,500 for the initial in-person instructor and mentor training.
Those fees are largely paid by Monterey Bay-based Drone, Automation, and Robotics Technology (DART), which secured a grant from the James Irvine Foundation.
The classes will be held in a hangar at Watsonville Municipal Airport leased by EAA.
Chapter President Tom Hail said that the program aligns perfectly with his organization’s mission of inspiring young people to become pilots.
“That’s our main mission,” he said. “It exposes career paths to the kids and their parents, and that’s what we’ve been doing over the last 30 years.”
Julie Edwards, who oversees PVUSD’s CTE program, says the pathway will combine flight science, electrical, engineering and design principles, while giving them hands-on skills that underscore and reinforce the things they’re learning in the classroom.
“It just opens your eyes to a world of possibilities and what that might mean,” she said.
