Museum expands high school plane-building program

LONDONDERRY, New Hampshire — A high school student plane-building program is gaining altitude in the Granite State.

The Aviation Museum of N.H. recently expanded its high school student aircraft-building program to two new schools: Lebanon High School and Farmington High School.

Students at Lebanon High School will start building an aircraft in September 2024. Farmington will follow, with students due to begin a year later, in September 2025.

The plane-building programs are similar to one the Aviation Museum started in 2019 at the Manchester School of Technology, a Career and Technical Education high school in the Manchester School District.

The Manchester program saw its first aircraft completed in August 2022. Students are now about mid-way through building their second aircraft.

The aircraft in each of the Aviation Museum’s plane-building programs is the RV-12iS, a two-seat all-metal light sport aircraft produced by the Van’s Aircraft.

Working with school faculty and guided by experienced volunteer mentors from the community, students in each school will take about two years to complete an aircraft. After being certified as airworthy, the finished aircraft is sold on the open market, with proceeds to be used to fund the next aircraft build.

“We’re delighted to bring the experience of building a real airplane to students in other parts of the state,” said Jeff Rapsis, executive director of the Aviation Museum of N.H., which is based at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport (KMHT).

The two districts were selected after a statewide search by the Aviation Museum staff.

The aircraft will be built at each school, then brought to a local airport for final testing, certification, and first flights.

Lebanon, a four-year academic high school enrolling just over 600 students, is transforming a three-bay garage on school grounds into the school’s plane-building workshop. Upon completion, the student-built aircraft will do its test flights out of Lebanon Municipal Airport (KLEB).

Farmington High School, among the state’s smallest, enrolls just 200 students in four grades. However, the school has newly renovated workshop space that will house the plane-building project. Test flights are expected to be made at Skyhaven Airport (KDAW) in nearby Rochester.

For each program, no local school tax dollars are used. As was the case in Manchester, the Aviation Museum, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, expects to raise $250,000 needed to start each program. Once established, the program is designed to be self-sustaining, museum officials explained.

Funds are raised via donations from the local business and aerospace community, grants, and individual contributions.

The Lebanon plane-build recently was awarded a $50,000 grant from the Byrne Foundation in support of the school’s plane-building program, which has been dubbed “Take Flight.”

To administer the program, the museum partners with Tango Flight, a Texas-based educational non-profit that facilitates student plane-building programs. Tango Flight provides expertise on the build, and also provides a two-year academic curriculum for schools to use as part of the project.

More information about the Aviation Museum’s high school plane-building program, and each of the schools involved, can be found on the Education area of the museum’s website at AviationMuseumOfNH.org.