LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Taking a plane apart is the first lesson for students in the Academy of Shawnee’s aeronautics program.
Before every trip, there’s a checklist, so even though the plane hasn’t left the tarmac, the lesson is already underway.
“We’re going to pop this part off and probably this part right here,” 11th grader Mathew Van Meter told Spectrum News 1.
Van Meter and his classmates are at Bowman Field and spread out across a four-seater Cessna. Classmate Adrian Harrison is crouched under the engine, draining fuel.
“They are very durable,” Harrison says of this model of plane. In fact, Harrison says he was last up in a Cessna about a week ago. The brand of aircraft is synonymous with flight training and Harrison said, “I want to go the pilot route.”
The Academy at Shawnee’s aeronautics program purchased a Cessna, but before the single-engine plane can land in the classroom, some parts have to come off.
“We’re going to take it apart, we’re going to send it back to the school and what we’re going to do after that is put it back together,” sophomore Nikolai Goshko said. Goshko and fellow sophomore Shawn Wright have already removed the upholstery and the struts are next.
At the tail end, the flight plan has hit a small snag.
“it’s kind of tedious because we only got about a quarter inch of room to kind of put this end wrench,” Van Meter explained as he and several classmates attempted to remove much of the plane’s wing.
But that’s the great thing about this class. No matter what happens, it’s all part of the lesson.
“They’ll be able to see how a plane operates, what makes it run, what makes it not run how to fix something in an emergency... so no it’s not going to fly again but it will teach them about the basic operations of an airplane,” Kym Rice said. Rice is the executive principal at the Academy at Shawnee.
Nearly 50 students are enrolled in Shawnee’s aeronautics program and with the addition of the plane Rice expects that number to grow next year.