A group of teens flew aircraft they restored from McKinney, Texas, to Lakeland, Florida, on a mission.
The teens are members of the Tango Thirty One Aero Clube at Aero Country Airport (T31), which was started by Kevin Lacey, who became well-known through the Discovery Channel’s series “Airplane Repo.”
They flew from Texas to attend the 2023 SUN ’n FUN Aerospace Expo in a 150 Commuter (N6337), a 1976 Cessna 150M (N8635U), and Kevin’s Cessna 172.
The mission: Learn all they could about successful teen flying clubs from the world’s biggest, the Lakeland Aero Club, as well as raise money for their own hangar.
“Our long-term goal is to have our own hangar,” said club member Kaitlyn “Jailbait” Murphy.
While sitting in the Lakeland Aero Club’s 12,500-square-foot hangar, she waved at the expansive structure.
“This would be great. We have to store planes in other hangars. Right now, we’re using Kevin’s hangar as our main work area.”
During SUN ’n FUN, Dr. Marli White, one of the directors of the club, met with philanthropic organizations to demonstrate the need for their own hangar.
The teen flying club was incorporated in 2017 as a non-profit organization and already some of its members have gone on to careers in aviation, such as Kaleb “Beer Money” McPherson, who is an Airframe & Powerplant mechanic at Wheeler Army Airfield in Hawaii.
He got his start working on airplanes at the flying club, where students restore, maintain, and learn to fly in the club’s aircraft.
Besides the one flown to SUN ’n FUN, the kids are working on another aircraft, a 1973 Cessna 172M they call the Swamp Hawk that they plan to restore in time for Oshkosh this summer. The Swamp Hawk’s new N-Number will be NT31AC for Tango Thirty One Aero Clube.
Why clube and not club? According to Lacey, he spent some time working in Brazil, where he made some great friends. They spell club with an e, so he decided to follow suit.
The kids don’t seem to mind the funky spelling as they are more interested in learning about aviation, not only from adult mentors, but also from original members of the club who come back to work on projects.
The attraction to aviation for the students is fun, said Savanna “Thunder” Hunter, who joined the club last July.
“The original members come back after work to help on projects, like Hammer and Blue,” she said.
She’s referring to Kevin “Hammer” Butler and Alex “Blue” Coats. All the kids in the club have call signs bestowed upon them by other members of the club.
Savanna is a junior in high school, but her school doesn’t have an aviation program. She found her way to the club through a friend at church, Matt Detz.
Matt, who works at Cirrus Aircraft as an aircraft mechanic, is also a pilot and ground instructor.
“He offered to teach me and donated all the ground school instruction,” she noted.
Being a part of the club is like having a “group of big brothers,” she added.
“They make fun of me when I mess up, but I give it back to them tenfold,” she said.
This was her first trip to an air show.
“I flew Kevin’s airplane with two other club members,” she said. “I flew the first three legs.”
She plans on flying with the club to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh this summer.
Be Accountable
Savanna describes Kevin Lacey’s management style as “real-world.”
“He takes a back seat and is more of a mentor,” she said. “He creates ownership and responsibility in what we do. They’re our airplanes. You want to take care of them. It makes everything we do more purposeful. And you can fail, but he won’t step in and do it for you. He’ll buy more parts, but he expects us to keep working until we get it right, to learn through experience. I rigged cables four times until I got it right.”
“I learned to admit it when I mess up,” she continued. “Accountability is one of the skills we live by.”
The students also learn to help each other.
“I like to clean, measure, and test the spark plugs,” she said. “I’ll teach that to the next newest kid in the club.”
Like those club members before her, Savanna plans to become a CFI and return to volunteer at the club.
Learn more about the club at T31AeroClube.com.
See a related story by Joni M. Fisher about Kevin Lacey’s new book, “Fly It Like You Stole It,” here.
