Update: 2025-26 School year - 8 High School kids in each class... AMAZING!! 16 kids in High School out of a town of 2600 are learning about Aviation, How to Fly (if they desire) and how to work on airplanes. Thanks HISD, this is awesome!
Wow. Talk about a crew. You’ve read the caption correctly—thanks to an awsome District Superintendant and School Board, in 2023 we began teaching a class in High School focused on careers in Aviation and Aerospace. Each one of the kids will be learning the basics of Aviation Weather, Aerodynamics, Navigation, Regulations, as well as career paths toward becoming a Pilot or Engineer. It’s a lot of hands-on—experiments launching weather balloons and Aerodynamics, guest speakers who are NASA engineers, fighter pilots and weather experts—too much here to list, but it’s a blast! And yes, each of the kids flies the Cub and Stearman.
But it kust kept getting better... We offered the same class in 2024-25, plus a 2-period class focused entirely on becoming an Aviation Mechanic! The shop class hours count towards an A&P apprenticeship, and the class is restoring a 1946 Piper J-3. We are teaching courses not typically covered at A&P Schools like welding, sheet-metal forming, woodwork and fabric covering. It’s a really, really, cool class for the kids interested in Aviation Mechanics. Hopefully some of these kids will continue on and be eligible for our John Cournoyer Aviation Mechanics scholarship!