Bentonville Public Schools students in the Ignite Professional Studies Program’s aviation branch are getting an exciting opportunity.
The 40-student, two-year program is building an RV-12 airplane that will be inspected and approved by the Federal Aviation Administration. The skills used in this program are designed to help steer the students in the right direction to set them up for an aviation career.
“One of the biggest things for us is to be preparing students for what is next for them,” Jessica Imel, the director of Ignite Professional Studies, said. “If we can pull projects into our classroom that allow students to basically fast forward into a future career, develop some professional skillsets along the way, start to meet some people in that industry, that helps them make that more-informed decision after they leave high school.”
For half of the students’ school day, they’ll drive from Bentonville High School to Thaden Field for the aviation class. The students learn aircraft manufacturing skills, how to plan flights while accounting for weather and how to use a flight simulator.
“I’m very much a visual person, so it’s hard to sit in a classroom and just listen for lectures for me,” Will Bollinger, a senior at Bentonville High School and a member of the aviation program, said. “That’s why I like coming here for half my school days. I get to stand up. I don’t have to sit for two hours. I get to walk around and work on an airplane.”
Will Gunselman is the instructor for the Ignite Aviation program. He said the students get independence and freedom to figure things out on their own, saying he’s more like a “peer” than an instructor.
Tango Flight is partnering with the school system to provide the curriculum and the kit to build the plane. The students receive the parts, open the manual and begin building, Gunselman said. He said the workload is distributed evenly between himself and the students.
“Every single day I leave just so proud of every person in this strand,” Gunselman, who’s been with the program for a year and a half, said. “The ‘A-ha’ moments are really what can make you emotional sometimes is when they hear a guest speaker and they say, ‘That’s what I want to do.’”
The Bentonville City Council approved an ordinance to lease a building at Bentonville Municipal Airport – Thaden Field to the school system to use for the aviation program’s studies. The school system will pay a total of $96,726 over the next 10 years to use the building.
After successfully building the plane and having it approved for air travel by the FAA, the school system intends to sell it and use the revenue from the sale to buy more parts for the next batch of program students to build the next RV-12 plane, Imel said.
The Ignite Professional Studies Program has been around for 10 years, adding the aviation strand three years ago.
Students go through an application and interview process to be accepted into the Ignite program. Aviation is one of 10 domains students can enroll in, joining construction management, culinary arts, digital media, education innovation, engineering-industrial design, global business, health sciences, law-public policy and technology.
“I’m going to remember this program for the rest of my life,” Bollinger, who hopes to attend the Air Force Academy after high school, said.
You can find the original article and video from KNWA/KFTA here. Ignite Professional Studies is an affiliate of the CAPS Network.