Students at Navasota High School are halfway through their biggest project yet — building an airplane. Partnering with Tango Flight, those enrolled in the two-year aviation program are assembling a Vann’s RV 12iS two-seater aircraft. The plane is set to take off as early as May 2024.
Tango Flight is a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation that partners with school districts to bring their innovative aviation program into the high school classroom. Tango Flight provides a full, aviationbased classroom curriculum in which the "Lab" or "Shop" portion of the curriculum has the students build an actual airplane - the Van's RV-12iS. Tango Flight provides on-site training for teachers and mentors (community volunteers who help the students build the plane), as well as full logistics and technical support throughout the build of the airplane.
Students are able to use the tools provided to construct the plane, Navasota ISD Engineering teacher and program instructor Michael Kubacak says.
“The students actually work with a lot of hands-on tools and they learn about a lot of different processes involved with aviation mechanics,” Michael says. “They're not manufacturing any parts, it's more along the lines of just assembly. In addition to the students actually building the plane, there's a lot of in-classroom instruction as well, in regards to aerospace.”
The class takes place in Michael’s classroom and shop. It’s a block class, meaning that students attend it every day for either build or instructional days. Depending on what year students join, they’ll either be starting a new build or finishing the last half of it. Prerequisites are not required, but Michael strongly encourages students to take his introduction to engineering and principles of engineering classes beforehand.
"Once we finish the build of the airplane, anyone who has worked on the plane will get to experience a ride in the plane after it's complete," Michael says.
Executive Director and cofounder of Tango Flight Dan Weyant started the first plane for Tango in 2016 for a high school in Georgetown. Shortly after, the general manager of Airbus called Dan asking him to set up a similar program in Wichita, Kansas.
“Honestly, I never had no real intention of expanding beyond Georgetown,” Dan says. “It was just something that was a cool idea to do with my kids.”
Dan says aviation always interested him since his grandfather was a pilot. After starting engineering programs in Texas high schools, he got his own pilot’s license and started building an airplane, which gave him the idea of turning it into a STEM program for students.
“So I went to my superintendent and said, ‘Hey, I'd like to do this with the kids,’” Dan says. “And he said, ‘No, absolutely not — liability and everything else.’ He was really good about working with me on it. So we went back and forth for about a year to figure out how we could do this in a high school setting and do it properly. So, that's where Tango Flight came from.”
Despite there being 30 schools with the program in the United States already, Dan says he makes it a priority to visit each location, especially to fly the finished product with anyone who worked on it. Tango Flight programs are anywhere from Manchester, New Hampshire to Wasilla, Alaska.
“It is neat and I really love flying them,” Dan says. “It takes a while doing them one at a time, obviously, but it's a lot of fun to do. The vast majority of these kids have never been in a small airplane before and an awful lot of them have never been in any airplane before. It really gets them thinking about career opportunities that they didn't know existed before this program.”
Before the plane takes off, the Federal Aviation Administration comes out to inspect and issue an airworthiness certificate. After that, test flights are done by a qualified pilot and any issues are addressed — none of which have ever been anything more than radio issues or random noises for their planes, Dan says. Tango prides itself on ensuring schools have little stress regarding the program.
“Tango Flight owns the airplane, so school districts never own an airplane,” Dan says. “And that's a big deal from a liability standpoint for districts. We manage all the assets, we handle all of that, we handle the disposal of the plane at the back end — we make it a turnkey solution for school districts.”
Dan says that partnerships with Wichita State University, Airbus and Delta — to name a few —allow Tango to invest in having curriculum written alongside the actual building process.
“We're not just a, ‘let's build an airplane’ program,” Dan says. “We're not a shop class where you're building something. We are a STEM curriculum that happens to use the airplane build to reinforce the stem objectives.”
After two schools in North Carolina are added to the program this fall, Tango will be in 13 states across the nation, according to their website. Texas is leading with 11 programs, more than any other state currently. Michael, who originally started in aerospace at Texas A&M, says students also learn about other aspects such as metal working, airports and civil engineering.
“I think it really helps students to see just what is out there, and the wide range of things that they can accomplish,” Michael says. “And that it, honestly, is a very prestigious program and it lets them see just what they can get done with their own hands. It'll really open up a range of possibilities for them to hopefully want to go into something in aviation.”
