Airplane building management, taught by David Selenke, is a class that gives students the opportunity to learn how to build a two person flyable airplane. The construction of the plane started December of 2022 and is estimated to be finished in about 3 weeks.
Selenke expresses that he has always had a passion for building and teaching the next generation how to build planes. Although the plans for this class have changed over the years Selenke could not be more appreciative of the opportunities this class has not only provided him with but also the students filtering through his class over the years.
“I was offered this position about four years ago when the class first started and I thought it would be a really good opportunity to work with high school students and build a kit airplane.”
Selenke explains the process of turning spare parts from a kit into a working airplane that the students will fly at the end of the year. Selenke has been here at the Maize career Academy for four years and over the course of those years has made three airplanes with students.
“This allows students to take an airplane from a kit with just some spare parts and we put it together into an airplane that we will fly.”
Although this process may seem challenging and complex, Selenke ensures that you do not need any special skills in order to build a plane in his class; rather, just a love for airplanes and a willingness to learn. Because our school has been provided with the same tools that any average aircraft assembly line would be provided with, it is relatively simple to follow the directions and imply your knowledge to various parts of the building process.
“We use rivet guns we use anything you would see on an actual aircraft assembly . If you have a love for airplanes and your interested in learning then that’s the only skill you need.”
Paxton Powers is currently taking this class and has already worked on multiple parts of the plane.
“Lately my group has been building the cow which is the front head of the plane but just recently we did the epoxy work on it.”
Powers expresses how grateful he is for this opportunity because he knows that not many others get the same opportunity outside of our school. This is a once in a lifetime class and many students cherish the time they have in the class.
“I would take this class because I don’t know of anything you could do like this outside of school”
