STEM Cells

Students members of the McKinney, Texas-based Tango Thirty One Aero Clube have journeyed to Florida for purpose of attending the 49th annual SUN ‘n FUN Aerospace Expo, where they will meet members of their sister organization, Lakeland Aero Club.

Tango Thirty One co-founder Kevin Butler, 25, stated: “I’m so excited, I’ve been wanting to come for the last couple of years but haven’t been able to make it out.”

As the aerospace industry contends with a worrying paucity of skilled personnel, many professional organizations, to include the EAA, AOPA, and GAMA, posit aviation’s future may well hinge upon the popularity of and participation in high school aero clubs and similarly aviation-focused student organizations—such as the clubs and assemblies secondary to elementary and high school Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths (STEM) curricula.

Tango Thirty One Aero Clube was founded in 2017 after Kevin Lacey traveled to Lakeland to film a show about the repossession of an aircraft. While in the Swan City, Lacy met Mike Zidziunas, president of the Lakeland Aero Club, and learned of its mission to encourage student interest in both flight and the larger aviation industry.

Mr. Zidziunas remarked: “I gave him all of our staff, our ways of fundraising, rules and procedures for the students. He mixed it together and made their own Texas version of it.”

Lakeland and Tango Thirty One are among the few high school flying clubs that encourage their members to fly across the United States. In addition to SUN ‘n FUN, the clubs’ members make pilgrimages to the EAA’s AirVenture event, held annually at Oshkosh, Wisconsin’s Wittman Regional Airport (OSH).

In addition to fostering its own membership, Lakeland Aero Club has been a supporter of the Winter Haven, based Aspiring Aviators Aero Club Inc., which was formed in October 2020.

Lakeland Aero Club aspires to assist in the launching of numerous student aviation clubs.

Speaking to the vital role student groups play in bringing together teenagers harboring nascent interests in aviation, Mr. Zidziunas remarked: “It's starting to happen, and it needs to happen across the country. … We have a tremendous looming pilot, mechanic, and air traffic controller shortage.”

Zidziunas set forth that the Pentagon’s current push toward Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) is contributing to a worsening dearth of military pilots, which in turn has shrunk the talent pool from which airlines have historically recruited aviators—all at a time characterized in part by the dramatic expansion of the aerospace sector. Mr. Zidziunas believes the aviation industry has missed out on an entire generation of pilots, and must now focus on alternate means by which to recruit air-crew personnel.

SUN ‘n FUN 2023 will host the newly-launched Junior ACES program—an initiative conceived of by the Aerospace Center for Excellence (ACE), a joint-undertaking of SUN ‘n FUN and the Central Florida Aerospace Academy (CFAA), a Polk County Public High School Career Academy and Florida Air Museum. The Aerospace Center for Excellence is dedicated to STEM education and operates a 14-building aerospace STEM facility on SUN ‘n FUN’s Lakeland, Florida campus.

The Junior ACES program runs throughout 2023’s SUN ‘n FUN event and features hands-on workshops in which young people ages 7 to 17 can build radios, carve propellers, design digital airports, and more.

Upwards of two-thousand elementary and high school students signed up for 2023’s Junior ACES program; nevertheless, Aerospace Center for Excellence director Eric Crump stated: “We want more children to come and experience the magic of aviation.”

Each year, Lakeland Aero Club members openly work on projects in full view of SUN ‘n FUN attendees, many of whom stop by and inquire after the goings on. This year, students are splitting their efforts between attaching a pair of pontoons to an aircraft and learning how to build a piston aircraft engine.

In addition to interest, the attainment of an aviation career is predicated upon money—a good deal of it. In 2023, the cost of earning a Private Pilot Certificate is well north of $15,000. It is fortuitous, therefore, that students may avail themselves of ACE and CFAA programs and scholarships—the funding for which derives almost exclusively of revenues raised during the yearly SUN ‘n FUN Aerospace Expo.

Mr. Zidziunas asserted many Polk County students wouldn’t currently be attending classes at ACE or CFAA were it not for financial assistance they receive from scholarship programs.

Notwithstanding student aviation clubs and entities the likes of ACE and CFAA, Zidziunas fears the talent shortfall with which the aviation industry is faced may be insurmountable in the short-term.

“We are hoping the industry will step up,” Zidziunas conceded, “and we are starting to see that.”

FMI: https://aceedu.org