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Early birds
[Times photos: Krystal Kinnunen]
Marcos Lerdo, 14, and Chad Durham, 15, test wooden planes they made in airplane mechanics class at Robinson High School. The class is part of the MacDill Aeronautical Academy, a joint effort of Robinson and MacDill Air Force Base. |
By RON MATUS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published September 6, 2002
Students at Robinson High's new MacDill Aeronautical Academy are getting a head start on careers in aviation.
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INTERBAY -- Richard Margison was barely old enough to walk when he began thinking about how to fly.
He was 2. His parents would take him to Tampa International Airport on weekends so he could watch planes dash down runways and lift into the clouds.
"He would just sit there with his face pressed against the glass and say, 'Plane! Plane!' " said his mother, Tammy Margison. Now 14, Richard Margison dreams of becoming an astronaut.
And he's enrolled in one of the few high school programs in the United States that can point him that way.
Yvonne Martinez, 15, assembles her wooden plane. She tried six or seven designs before she could make it fly.
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The brand new MacDill Aeronautical Academy, a joint effort between Robinson High School and MacDill Air Force Base, unfurled its wings last month. The academy aims to give students a head start on becoming pilots, mechanics, engineers -- even astronauts.
"I always wanted to fly," Richard Margison said last week during a field trip to the base.
Two months from now, the inaugural class of 70 students, mostly 9th- and 10th-graders, will begin taking flights with instructors in gliders and small motorized planes. By the time the teens graduate, school officials expect at least half will have earned pilot's licenses.
But there's more to the program than flying. Students will watch Air Force personnel work. They'll meet engineers from aviation companies such as Lockheed Martin.
On Tuesday, they toured Tampa International Airport, from the baggage department to the runway.
Six kids had never been on a plane before.
"This opens their eyes to a lot of different careers," said Cindy Smith, director of community partnerships at MacDill.
The program is a perfect fit for Robinson, said principal Kevin McCarthy. Many students have military ties through relatives, and the base runway is a mile away.
Beyond that, the school is under capacity.
"We have the room here to grow," said McCarthy, who estimated the academy could hold as many as 400 students.
The program isn't for everyone.
Participants need a 3.0 GPA and a spotless disciplinary record. Two teachers must recommend them. And they must write an essay explaining why they want to be enrolled.
Once in, they take most of the classes other Robinson students take. But for 90 minutes each day they also take classes such as History of Aviation and Theory of Flight. Diplomas will say they specialized in aviation technology.
From there, supporters hope, the sky's the limit.
Tenth-grader Ciera Young is gunning for the Air Force Academy and the chance to be a fighter pilot.
From left, Brian Godsey, Yvonne Martinez, Shawn Lunghi and Chase Wyatt, all 15, build model planes. The new program at Robinson aims to give students a head start on becoming pilots, mechanics, engineers and astronauts.
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Flying a jet "seems like a really cool thing," said Young, 15. Her goal: "To go higher than anybody's gone before."
Ninth-grader James McCoy said flying will "make me feel free."
He became interested when he heard students will build their own plane. Then he heard some will fly the planes, too. "I said I got to join," McCoy said.
Yvonne Martinez, 15, wants to be a mechanic. She decided to give the academy a shot when she couldn't get into Robinson's car class.
"It'll be a new experience," she said.
Most of the students are from South Tampa. But not all of them.
Margison, the budding astronaut, is from Riverview. He and about 25 other students from elsewhere in Hillsborough County must find their own transportation.
Margison's mom, who works at the Hillsborough County Courthouse, waits until 2:30 p.m. for lunch so she can pick him up. He studies in her office until they leave at 5:30 p.m.
"We all make sacrifices," Tammy Margison said.
The instructor, Melvin Carr, sees himself in his students.
When he was 10, he caught a ride in a plane owned by a friend of his mother's. "I was hooked," said Carr, 57.
After that, he hung out at the airport near his Missouri home every chance he could, hoping for another chance to soar. He pumped gas. Cleaned planes. Asked questions. "Generally became a pesky kid," he said.
Rides came. But Carr wouldn't get a chance to take the controls until he joined the Air Force, where he stayed for 21 years.
Now he's the one who determines when students are ready to fly.
Chase Wyatt, 15, puts the finishing touches on his wooden plane during airplane mechanics class.
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He's easygoing one minute; stern, the next.
"Excuse me," he said when two students interrupted a conversation he was having.
He gave another student 10 seconds to pull up sagging pants.
A few minutes later, a hand glider zipped into a model plane hanging from the ceiling.
"Hey," Carr said to the student who launched it, "you break one of my models and I'll have to stuff you into a jet intake."
Field trips are a big part of the program.
Two weeks ago, the students toured MacDill. This week it was TIA. Future destinations include Peter O. Knight Airport on Davis Islands, Vandenburg Airport in Hillsborough County and Zephyrhills Municipal Airport in Pasco County.
In November, the students take their first flights. They don't need licenses because Civil Air Patrol instructors will be on board, Carr said.
Until then, they'll practice on flight simulators.
They'll also build balloons out of toilet paper and rockets safe enough to carry raw eggs.
For their first project, the students built their own hand gliders, using balsa wood, glue and clay.
Some followed designs in a book; others, blueprints in their heads. Last week, they launched their creations behind the classroom.
One zoomed liked a missile over a circular driveway, then dropped nose first next to the seniors' picnic tables.
Marcos Lerdo launches his wooden plane during a recent class. “I love the military,” he says. “If I can’t be a car mechanic, maybe I’ll be an airplane mechanic or a pilot.”
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Another wobbled to the ground like a shot duck.
"Mine is going loop-de-loop," said Martinez, the future mechanic.
"What did we tell you when we talked about it going loop-de-loop?" Carr responded patiently, holding the plane in front of him.
She tried to wing an answer, but Carr called her on it.
She tried again: "I have to glue the wings on top?" she said.
Good, Carr said. And the wings should be curved instead of square. And the tail wing needs adjusting.
"I though I'd get it to work right the first time," Martinez said, admitting this was her sixth or seventh design.
No problem, Carr said. For this exercise, students don't get graded on how far or how fast their planes go.
They get graded on whether they're asking questions.
"The idea here," Carr said, "is to explore."
-- Writer Ron Matus can be reached at 226-3405 or matus@sptimes.com.
To learn more
For more information about the MacDill Aeronautical Academy, call Robinson High School at 272-3006.
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