A half dozen students crowded around a blue fuselage, prodding the panels and inspecting bolts.
Moments earlier, their assistant principal hauled the body of a two-seat Van’s RV-8 into a hangar at the Salem Municipal Airport, giving the Salem high school students their newest tool for hands-on learning.
Sixty-two high school juniors and seniors from around the Salem-Keizer School District are learning to fly planes, pilot drones and work on aircraft as part of the district’s newest career education program.
The aviation program opened this fall at the Career Technical Education Center on Northeast Portland Road, a magnet campus for hands-on career programs, but moved this week into a hangar at the airport after months of renovations.
It’s a location that will give the students more firsthand opportunities to work on planes and learn from aviation professionals.
“They’re kind of still taking it in,” pilot instructor James Hutches said of his students.
The Salem-Keizer School Board voted to purchase the hangar in 2022 for $1.825 million, and the district renovated the 16,000 square foot space to house classrooms, simulators and open space for working on aircraft. The renovations cost $2.8 million.
Aside from real airplanes, the hangar houses a full-body flight simulator designed to mirror a real cockpit, with two seats and wraparound screens showing terrain. It’s all mounted on a platform that moves as students turn, giving a realistic, immersive way to learn.
The simulator also records both cockpit video and the exterior of an animated plane that students can watch after the flight to learn.
“This is really nice,” said Katelyn Osborn Juarez, a Sprague high school senior and aviation student, as she tried the controls for the first time Wednesday.
Her interest in becoming a pilot dates back to childhood, when she began flying as an unaccompanied minor to visit her grandparents. On one of her first solo flights, the pilot invited her in the cockpit to show her the controls.
She’s wanted to be on the flight deck ever since.
“I’m very excited to be here,” she said, speaking as she steered her plane in the simulator back toward Portland International Airport after a flight down the Columbia River. “I would love to inspire others because there’s not a lot of young women who want to be pilots.”
The program is an expanded version of a drone program that opened several years ago at CTEC. With pilot courses added, students can complete ground school and earn flight hours in the simulators toward their pilot’s licenses, or become certified as aircraft mechanics or drone pilots.
It’s intended to give students a head start on an in-demand career path.
Hutches said the program has partnerships with Alaska Airlines, which will take graduates into their flight training program to become pilots for regional carrier Horizon.
“This just gives them a really big leg up,” Hutches said.
Avelo Airlines, which began flights out of Salem in October, is also helping with instruction. Avelo pilot Charles Talley, a South Salem High School graduate, will serve as a guest instructor.
Hutches said students will have other opportunities at the airport, like visiting the air traffic control tower or helping work on the restoration of the Lacey Lady, a World War II B-17 bomber housed at a neighboring hangar with the nonprofit B-17 Alliance Foundation.
As Osborn Juarez flew in the simulator, Hutches watched from outside, tweaking the program’s settings to add turbulence, then send her into heavy fog.
“Can you maintain your altitude?” he challenged her as the screens surrounding her became dense white. She held steady, and Hutchens again tweaked the settings so the ground appeared, then grew dark.
He coached Osborn Juarez through a nighttime approach to the main runway at the Portland Airport. She followed the lights in for a smooth landing.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers city news, education, nonprofits and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade. Outside of work, she’s a skater and board member with Salem’s Cherry City Roller Derby and can often be found with her nose buried in a book.
