Visiting Tango 31 Aero Clube is a reminder of what grassroots aviation really looks like.
The club — originally founded by the late Kevin Lacey — operates with a simple rule: If you want to fly, you help rebuild an airplane. The aircraft that arrive at Tango 31’s hangar at Aero Country Airport (T31) have definitely seen better days. But through the hands of dedicated volunteers, motivated youth, and support from partners like Tempest Aero and McFarlane Aviation, they’re brought back to life. The result? Affordable flying and a direct pathway into the industry for young adults in Texas.
“It’s not often I walk away from a DreamLaunch visit feeling like the beginner, but the members of Tango 31 earned that honor,” Jamail says. “Listening to teenagers talk through wiring harness strategies for an avionics install or watching them replace McFarlane fuel lines gives me confidence that as 83% of today’s mechanics approach retirement, the next generation is ready.”
The highlight of the visit was showing the students how to use Aviation Start‘s new AI Scholarship Finder to instantly discover every scholarship they qualify for. Watching them light up as they realized how many opportunities exist — and were already within reach — was the best part of the visit, Jamail says.
You can read all of the stories in the Where’s Jamail? series here.
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