The college is receiving grant funding from the American Electric Power Foundation to help get their new Aviation And Maintenance Technician School off the ground.
The college is receiving grant funding from the American Electric Power Foundation to help get their new Aviation And Maintenance Technician School off the ground.
The grant puts $100,000 towards buying equipment for the new aviation program. At least some of the funding is going towards getting a jet engine powered aircraft and operational systems students can work on.
“It just enables us to give students hands-on, real experience on working on an aircraft,” Program Director Art Dilger said. “It’s really exciting to see it all come together.”
The sentiment was echoed by school president Bonny Copenhaver, who said in a statement that these programs “are designed to meet the needs of employers in our region and to train and employ community members.”
The school’s focus on aviation is meant to address a nationwide shortage of mechanics in the field. They’re joining other schools around the state in creating more aviation programs, like Marshall and Shepherd Universities.
“For our area that enables younger people or students to get into a career there’s no end to,” Dilger said. “They can continue growing and continue being educated as they move forward.”
Nearby Raleigh County Memorial Airport is also supporting the program, with New River Community Technical College purchasing a hangar at the airport last year.
The program is currently in the process to be certified by the Federal Aviation Administration, but Dilger said he expects the school to be fully opened by the end of 2024.
West Virginia native Emily Calandrelli has built a career encouraging kids, especially girls, to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.
She recently spoke with Eric Douglas about her passion for space and a new project based right here in the Mountain State.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Douglas: Tell me a little bit about all the stuff you do.
Courtesy: Emily Calandrelli
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West Virginia native Emily Calandrelli is the “Space Gal” on television.
Calandrelli: I’m a WVU and MIT engineer turned science communicator. I host Netflix’s Emily’s Wonder Lab. I host and executive produce a show on Fox called Xploration Outer Space. I’ve worked with Bill Nye on his show, Bill Nye Saves the World on Netflix, and I have a series of children’s books. The main ones that people might know are the Ada Lace Adventures, which features a West Virginia girl who loves science and technology.
Douglas: Why was it important for you to use a West Virginia girl in your stories?
Calandrelli: It was important for me to have a girl as the main character first. When I was a kid, I didn’t find a lot of books about adventure and science that featured little girls as the main character. And it was also important to me that she be from West Virginia because I think as West Virginians, we know that a lot of times when we are in the news or make national headlines, it is not often for positive things. And I think that we just need a bit more positive stories about West Virginians in the world.
Douglas: Have you ever received any pushback from the publishers or anybody saying, West Virginia is such a small state? Let’s go with a kid from New York or California or something like that?
Calandrelli: It was kind of the best of both worlds because she’s a West Virginia girl who moves to California. I was a West Virginia girl who moved to California and they say write about what you know. And so there’s a little bit of West Virginia and California in there.
Douglas: Tell me about what this project you’re working on now. As with most of your projects, you’re working on STEM education, encouraging people, young people, especially young women to pursue careers in, in STEM. But tell me tell me what, what this project is all about?
Calandrelli: This is a project called The Future is You with West Virginia Public Broadcasting in partnership with the West Virginia Department of Education. And it’s all about featuring women in aviation throughout the state, the education opportunities that are right here in West Virginia, and also the job opportunities in aviation that you can get right here in West Virginia after you get that education and training.
Douglas: What are some of the growth opportunities for young people, especially young women, in West Virginia in the aviation industry.
Calandrelli: We went to the Robert C. Byrd Aerospace Educational Center at Pierpont Community College and they’re training A and P mechanics. So airplane mechanics and they’re just not very many women in that field. And it’s such a good career. I mean, it’s two years of education and the average salary of an A and P mechanic is $60,000. People later in their career can make over $100,000 with a two year certification. I think that’s really, really incredible. And those jobs are in high demand right now. The percentage of women in that field is so low. A really good way to fulfill the demand in that position is just to have more women join. And so I’d love to see more women in that field.
We went to Marshall University. They had a new flight school just open up. It’s brand new, and it looks gorgeous. And they have these new, slick planes that they’re training pilots. And they have a waiting list because there’s so many students who want to become pilots that they literally have a waiting list for students who want to learn how to fly these planes. And so they’re now working on ways to buy more planes to fill the demand there. And so it’s really, really exciting that all of this is happening all around the state.
Douglas: A lot of West Virginians probably don’t even realize there’s a really large aviation industry up in the Clarksburg-Bridgeport area
Calandrelli: Yeah, the Pratt Whitney is there and Aurora Flight Sciences. There’s a lot of jobs right there.
Douglas: You could get the A and P certification, which is airframe and powerplant I believe, and stay right here in West Virginia. It’s not like you’re getting training here and then have to move away to some other place.
Calandrelli: Sometimes the problems that we see, you get the training here in West Virginia, and then you look around, and there’s no jobs in that field that you wanted to work in. But that’s not the case in aviation. I mean, just like you said, you can get the A and P certification, and then literally go across the street from where you got that certification, and work at one of these leading aerospace jobs that are located right here in the state.
Douglas: I know you recently had a daughter of your own. What are your hopes and dreams for her as far as all of this goes?
Calandrelli: I just want every opportunity to be available to her. I want her to see every career that is available and imagine herself in it. Because all too often, sometimes when we see these careers, like pilot, for example, . You picture a certain type of person in that role. And for women, that person doesn’t always look like them. And I’m hoping that that demographic will change for a lot of these careers, especially in aviation and aerospace, so that she can see herself in all sorts of careers when she gets older.
Douglas:What’s the next big thing on the horizon for you?
Calandrelli: Oh, gosh. For me personally, I’m filming season seven of Xploration Outer Space. We’re producing that season now. So picking what we’re going to film and then we’ll go film it soon enough. I am writing more books. I have a new book coming out next year called Reach for the Stars that I wrote after my daughter was born. It’s my first picture book. And then I have a book of experiments coming out called Stay Curious and Keep Exploring that’s coming out later next fall, so about a year from now, and working on a few animated shows that we’ll be pitching very soon. So a few irons in the fire, I guess.
The project on women in aviation in West Virginia called The Future is You with West Virginia Public Broadcasting in partnership with the West Virginia Department of Education is slated to be out later this fall.
The new Aviation Maintenance Technology partnership program between Marshall University and Mountwest Community & Technical College got a big boost recently. Delta Air Lines Technical Operations designated the program as a partner educational institution.
The West Virginia program will join 45 other aviation maintenance schools across the country that have received the endorsement of Delta Technical Operations. It is the first program in the region to receive the designation.
Existing aviation maintenance schools only have the capacity to produce about 65 percent of the aviation mechanics and technicians the industry needs, according to William Smith, Delta’s director of learning and development for Technical Operations.
The new program will offer a dual associate of applied science degree from both institutions and provide students the opportunity to earn FAA certifications as well as specialized credentials. It will launch in spring 2022 pending FAA approval.
Federal, state and local representatives gathered at Yeager Airport in Charleston Thursday to break ground for the new Marshall University Bill Noe Flight School.
Jerome Gilbert, president of Marshall University, explained that the school learned the aviation industry needed new pilots because they have a federally mandated retirement age.
“It was after a thorough investigative and fact-finding process, Marshall committed to a flight school to produce commercial pilots with a bachelor’s degree,” Gilbert said
Credit Eric Douglas / WVPB
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WVPB
Dignitaries including US Senator Joe Manchin and Jerome Gilbert, president of Marshall University, broke ceremonial ground for the new Bill Noe Flight School at Yeager Airport.
When the Bill Noe Flight School is fully functional, the program will produce 50 commercial pilots annually, he said. Classroom instruction will take place at the Marshall University South Charleston Campus.
Gov. Jim Justice also attended, and said the program will be an economic driver for the state and region. The state already exports more than $150 million in airplane parts annually.
“Just think of the employment, of the attraction to West Virginia that this is going to bring,” Justice said. “I congratulate Marshall, I can congratulate all of you who have done great work here.”
The flight school is named for Bill Noe, a Marshall graduate, pilot and the university’s executive aviation specialist for the new Division of Aviation.
The aviation school will include a 12,000 square-foot hangar with classes beginning in fall 2021.
Twenty businesses in West Virginia provide materials, make airplane parts or service engines and airframes for the aviation industry and the state exports more than $150 million of airplane parts every year.
One of the bigger players is Pratt and Whitney in Bridgeport. Pratt and Whitney is a multinational corporation that manufactures jet engines for civilian and corporate jets. The West Virginia facility, though, services older engines.
“Engines will come in and we’ll bring them in, disassemble them all the way down to the nuts and bolts,” said Pratt and Whitney’s general manager Tim Tucker. “We go through them, clean’em, inspect them, repair anything that’s deviating and then bring it back and build it all back up together, right here.”
Richard Aboulafia studies trends in the aviation industry for the Teal Group. He says West Virginia’s work in servicing older aircraft engines may give it an economic edge over the rest of the country.
“The major centers primarily do new builds. And that’s going to be a bit more volatile, you know, than fleet sustainment. So that might provide a level of insulation for the West Virginia facilities,” he said.
Credit Eric Douglas / WVPB
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WVPB
A jet engine ready to be disassembled at Engine Management Specialists in Bridgeport, West Virginia. The engine will be complete taken apart for its usable parts.
Engine Management Specialists (EMS) in Bridgeport fills a unique niche. The company receives mostly Pratt and Whitney engines that have been taken out of service for one reason or another and completely disassembles them. EMS removes the parts that have a usable service life and sells them back to Pratt and Whitney to return other engines to flight.
The company’s owner, Tim Critchfield said the value in an engine could range anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000 depending on the engine.
According to the latest jobs report from Workforce West Virginia, there are about 3,600 West Virginians employed in the aviation industry. For West Virginia Commerce Secretary Ed Gaunch it is a start on diversifying the state’s economy.
“It’s critical to our future. We’ve been an energy state. Coal’s been important to us, it is still important, and I think will remain important, but what we’re trying to do is construct an economy around some of these other industries,” he said.
According to Gaunch, the aviation industry pays about $24 million in taxes to the state and each job in the industry has an average salary of $78,000.
Despite these earnings, there aren’t enough skilled workers to fill the positions. Ruben Segura, the deputy general manager at Pratt and Whitney’s Bridgeport facility, said the company is working directly with high schools and universities and colleges to train workers.
“We’re going to have to have that resource available to us. We want to continue to grow,” he said.
To work in the aviation manufacturing industry in West Virginia, workers typically need to go through an Airframe and Powerplant course at a technical college or university. Next fall, Marshall University will launch a new associate’s degree program with MountWest Community and Technical College to certify technicians.
Updated August 10, 2020:
West Virginia Department of Education Office of Career & Technical Education (CTE) Aerospace and Aviation Technology Programs are currently offered in high schools in nine different counties across WV.
Pierpont Community and Technical College, Robert C. Byrd National Aerospace Education Center: The only FAA certified Part 147 school offering an Associate Degree in Aviation Maintenance Technology that provides the FAA Airframe and Powerplant certification. Graduates of this program may seek direct employment as aviation maintenance technicians (AMTs). Now have an articulation agreement with Southern Illinois University enabling students to study online for their bachelor degree in Aviation Maintenance Management.
Fairmont State University: Offers a variety of aviation related bachelor’s degrees and is West Virginia’s only Part 141 FAA certified school offering programs in Aviation Administration & Professional Flight.
WVU Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering: WVU offers programs in mechanical and aerospace engineering for students to earn bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees. At the undergraduate level, students also have the option to dual major in both programs.
NASA Teacher & Student Training: The Katherine Johnson Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Facility in Fairmont WV is home of NASA’s IV&V Education Programs. These programs are offered to all WV educators and is preparing new K-12 teachers by providing access to NASA learning materials and educator professional development via its Educator Resource Center (ERC).
A DC-6 airplane, like this one, crashed after overshooting the runway at Kanawha Airport. The plane was filled with marijuana.
A little after midnight on June 6, 1979, a Douglas DC 6 cargo plane crashed in Charleston, West Virginia while attempting to land at the old Kanawha airport, what is now Yeager Airport.
The plane was carrying approximately 20,000 pounds of marijuana and the crew was made up of drug smugglers from South America. They had never flown into Charleston before, but decided to come to West Virginia believing security would be lighter, according to Stan Bumgardner, a West Virginia historian, and the editor of Goldenseal Magazine.
The plane was too big for the airport at that time and it was overloaded. Unable to stop in time, the plane crashed over the hillside at the end of the runway.
This story from a recent episode of Inside Appalachia includes a slightly different version of the story in the form of a tall tale from storyteller Bil Lepp. His telling is featured on his CD called “Fire Fire! Pants on Liar!” He told this tall tale back in 2008 at the public library in St. Albans, West Virginia.
Lepp is an award-winning storyteller and five-time winner of the West Virginia Liar’s contest. His brother Paul actually wrote the story.
Bumgardner said one of the biggest challenges for the authorities was what to do with the pot after the crash.
Credit Charleston Gazette-Mail file photo
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Charleston Gazette-Mail file photo
Kanawha County deputies unload bails of marijuana from the pot plane crash.
“With 20,000 pounds of marijuana, it was too much for an evidence room. The feds came in and decided they would burn it,” Bumgardner explained. “The newspaper interviewed Anna Marie Smith and she just talked about how there was an awful smell and it was just burning all the time. And then they asked her about how things had been on the street. And she just said, ‘Well, all of a sudden everybody’s really calm, and they were laughing and talking.’ And it said they started calling her road ‘happy holler.’”
Bumgardner says he’s also heard rumors that seeds from the pot grew up the hillside beside the airport. Authorities tried to kill the plants with diesel fuel, but some locals say the plants didn’t die off and some residents foraged the wild marijuana growing there.
The reason the smugglers were bringing the marijuana into the United States was another issue. Leon Gast was waiting on the ground in a rental truck to collect the goods. The story came out later that he was smuggling the pot to help finance a film about the “Rumble in the Jungle” fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire in 1974.
Gast was convicted on drug smuggling charges, but once he got out of prison, he did actually make the movie, called “When We Were Kings,” and it won an Academy Award in 1996.
