Students Can Start Learning To Fly And Repair Airplanes In The 10th Grade

The Georgetown, TX, school district is offering students the opportunity to earn their pilot certificates, as well as learn their way around the inner workings of airplanes. The aviation program is offered in conjunction with Pilot's Choice Aviation, a flight school based at Georgetown Municipal Airport (KGTU).

As part of the course, one recent school day found 17-year-old Sarah Jorczyk bolting gun barrels into the tail gunner position of a WWII bomber, according to a report appearing in the Austin, TX, American-Statesman. Thirty-two students are enrolled in the program, according to Georgetown HS aviation teacher John Miller.

Flight training and maintenance instruction comes in the second year of the program, Miller said. Students are responsible for paying for their own flight training, which can cost as much as $6,000, so some of the students "go straight into working on airplanes," he said. The chief mechanic at Pilot's Choice says that licenced A & P's "triple check" everything the student's do.

The school's website indicates the course is designed to teach the theory of operation of aircraft airframes, power plants, and avionics systems and associated maintenance and repair practices.

FMI: www.georgetownisd.org/Page/4168