Alabama's STEM explores is made possible by the generous support of the Holle Family Foundation established to honor the legacy of Brigadier General Everett Holle and his parents, Evelyn and Fred.

Holle, Champions of servant leadership, science, technology, engineering, math, all coming up right now on Alabama STEM Explorers.

Hey, my name's Peyton, and welcome to Alabama STEM Explorers.

Today, we're at the Alabama Aerospace and Aviation High School with my friend, Mr. Morris.

Hey, Peyton, How are you?

Good.

How are you?

I'm excited and super excited to share more about Alabama Aerospace and Aviation High School.

So as you mentioned, my name is Mr. Morris.

I am actually the CEO and founder of this amazing public high school here in Bessemer, Alabama.

So started off as a dream for me when I was actually your age.

When I was in the sixth grade, I lived in East Birmingham, right around the Birmingham airport.

And one of my favorite hobbies was on the weekends to actually go to the airport with my uncle.

He had an old Buick Regal, and we would sit on the hood of his car and watch the planes land.

And I always imagined to myself like, who's flying it?

Where are they going?

And could I one day be a commercial pilot?

So I ended up going to high school over at Shades Valley.

I grew up and went off to college and really didn't get an opportunity to even learn more about becoming a pilot or opportunities weren't available.

And that's why now, as an adult, I don't want students to have to make a choice about their dreams, but really be able to create an opportunity like a test so that they can pursue careers as pilots, aircraft mechanics, as aerospace engineers, and as computer scientists speaking of computers, we're standing right now in the HS computer lab here.

Some of our amazing students are working on various different projects.

Some of them may be working on that pathway work towards credentials in computer science.

Some of them may be taking dual enrollment courses at the University of Alabama, Lawson State working on some sort of course that's related to the aerospace engineering, or they could be going through some of the things they need for ground school because many of our students are in the aviation pathway and they're interested in being drone pilots or actually private pilots.

And that's what is really cool about our school, that we have unique pathways that kids have an opportunity starting at 10th grade to take courses and actually have hands on learning experiences to be able to work towards a actual career in aerospace and aviation.

So far, aviation pathways, those students that are interested in becoming private pilots have to get their Part 107 first or Part 107 is no school.

Part 107 is a designation that the Federal Aviation Administration or the FAA gives for commercial drone pilots.

And that's where I am.

I'm a commercial drone pilot.

And right now, if you're a commercial drone pilot, you can use that to go work for Alabama Power.

Tennessee Valley Authority or in some places you can get your Chick-Fil-A delivered by a drone.

I don't know how you get your Chick-Fil-A, but I'd like to get mine delivered by drone one day.

But the cool thing is, once the students get their part 107, they have an opportunity to start working towards a private pilot's license and two of our students are already student pilots.

Matter of fact, we got one in the background working on the flight simulator.

And so it's really exciting to give students an opportunity.

And what's even better is that the school fundraises in and uses general generous donors to actually help them to pay for their flight lessons.

So it's really exciting.

You see, they teach people how to fly airplanes.

Do you teach them anything else?

We also teach them how to maintain and repair airplanes as well.

One of our pathways is the aircraft mechanics pathway.

Those students get an opportunity to train and learn how to fix and work on and repair airplanes.

They learn about the engines, they learn about the airframes.

But all of this goes through a curriculum that we utilize called Choose Aerospace that was developed by college professors and the FAA.

We also utilize a curriculum from the aircraft owners and pilots Association that helps students learn a lot about different aerodynamics and the science behind flying before they actually get an opportunity to get in the cockpit and learn how to fly a plane.

So our students work really, really hard.

They take their same core high school courses like any other high school student, and they use their electric courses to organize into those pathways to actually work towards those industry recognized credentials, which are really cool because you know, oftentimes, you know, I like to show off my pilot's license, you know, but, you know, I don't see it when I get on the big planes because I can't fly those.

But I happen to think that this school is really cool.

And we have about a 160 plus students that agree as we get ready to grow as a school, we add new students every year and ninth and 10th grade, and those students come to us because they hear about us on television.

Their friends go to school here, or they just are Googling and searching for opportunities in STEM and aviation.

And the cool thing about it, this is free.

It's a free public charter school.

If a student registers, they have a chance to enroll.

They turn in that paperwork and they can start as a ninth or 10th grader in our school.

So where are all of your students from?

Payton That's a great question.

Our students actually come to us from a variety of different places.

They actually come to our our temporary campus here in downtown Bessemer from about a 50 mile radius in every direction as far west as Tuscaloosa, as far east as Moody, Alabama, as far north as Fulton there, and as far south as Calera.

So it's really cool because we get to offer bus transportation at different hubs in different parts of the metro area so that students have families that travel from long distances can still come to school.

Yes, we've even created a unique schedule that allows asynchronous learning on Fridays because some of our students have also come to us from home school and they're used to being able to be a part of small class sizes or working independently because our asynchronous schedule allows our kids to go on Fridays, they have an opportunity to fly planes and actually work on some planes with some of our partners that are industry partners in the community.

So it's exciting to see kids that some of them have even come from places like Vestavia Hoover that actually have chosen to come to school here in downtown Bessemer.

But what's even more cool is that we're in the process of building a new permanent building that will be at the Bessemer Airport, which is K E K Y, which is close to both Bessemer, Helena and is an area that's really close to Hoover.

So we anticipate continuing to attract students from a long range of different areas that are close to this airport.

And what better place to learn about aviation and aircraft maintenance and going to school at an airport?

If I wanted to come to school here, what would I have to do?

That's a great question.

Well, you'd have to be finished with eighth grade, and so you might have a couple more years to go.

But the first thing to do is to go to our website, which is .

I know that's a mouthful, but .

And there there's information about how you can enroll in our school.

So students who are interested, maybe they've seen something about our soccer team or EA sports team online.

They can share this website with their parents and their parents will be able to click the Enroll Now button, you know, give them information about what they need to submit in terms of enrollment.

And it's as simple as if you're enrolled at any other public school that will allow students the opportunity to first take a placement test, which is not any requirement in terms of admission, but it helps us understand where you are academically so that we can build a flight plan or a actual learning plan for this particular student that is based on data and where they're performing in their classes right now.

And so all of this information is available on our website.

And they also you could come to a saw Saturday, our core values, and we we really want our students to soar.

Scholarship, optimism, accountability, respect.

Those values are important to everybody.

A test and we have soar Saturdays are a space where families and interested students can come.

They can take a tour of the school, they can spend some time with teachers, and oftentimes they're hands on projects that the kids can do that help them to understand what it's like to go to school at HHS.

Are there any other places like this anywhere else?

Very good question.

Pay not here in Alabama, we are the very first and only aerospace and aviation high school in the state of Alabama and one of a handful across the entire country.

The closest aviation high schools are probably in Florida, maybe one or two in Tennessee.

And so we're super, super excited to really blazed a trail here in Alabama, where Alabama is actually in the top five in the country in aerospace and defense.

And we have some amazing companies like Airbus that do business here and Boeing, where this school has an opportunity to create a pipeline of students once they graduate, to be able to work at some of these companies that do business right here in Alabama.

Where do you eat?

Do your teachers come from?

So great question, Peyton.

We have some amazing teachers here.

HS that come from a variety of backgrounds.

Our core teachers are typically teachers who've taught in other school districts, or some of them have even come from other charter schools.

But all our CTE courses in particularly around aviation and aircraft maintenance, are taught by industry experts that are partners with the school.

We have some amazing partners like Birmingham Flight Center that provides flight training for our students in the aviation pathway that are working on their private pilot's license.

But we also have Pinnacle Aerospace, which is a Bessemer based company right at the Bessemer Airport that teaches our kids aircraft maintenance.

But the cool thing is, within our pathways, we also have higher education partners.

So we have some amazing national partners as well, like massive.

Our students get an opportunity to travel to Huntsville, and some of them are in special programs that happen at the US Space and Rocket Center.

NASA sends some of their scientists scientist and an that that come and spend time in our space as well as some of our dual enrollment partners that are really important, like Austin State where kids want to earn college credit while at the same time earning high school credit.

So our community partners are really, really big and important and they range from even just the city of Bessemer and Fountain of Life Church, where we actually lease space from.

Well, thank you, Mr. Morris, for having me here today.

You really do have an amazing school.

Well, Paden, thank you for coming out.

But before you go, I have one person I'd love for you to meet.

It's our aircraft maintenance instructor.

We're here at the Alabama Aeronautics and Aviation High School with my friend Mr. Scott.

Mr. Scott, what do we have in front of us right now?

We've got two airplane parts here today.

We're in the hangar at Alabama Aviation High School.

This is the Alabama maintenance portion of the aviation maintenance technicians are AMTs.

The job that is really in demand right now, there's a tremendous shortage.

And so last year, this school was started with a vision of trying to help meet this the shortage of technicians that we have in this field.

So these airplanes that you see behind us were all donated by several different companies to to be models for what we're going to work on.

So these students come in here one class per day.

We have 14 students in the AMT program.

Their last period of the day is spent working on these type items.

So each lesson focuses on a different portion of the aircraft.

The the certification that they're seeking before this is over with is an A and airframe and power plant technician that the FAA recognized is in order for anyone to be able to work on an aircraft, they have to be certified as an A and P. The FAA stands for airframe.

The P stands for power plant.

A lot of the things you see in front of you today are portions of the engine.

That's the power plant.

And so this week we've been removing the cylinders from engines, taking them apart, putting them back together and reinstalling them on the engines.

And that will meet some of their requirements for understanding the power, plant the airframe and see all of the wings have been removed from these aircraft.

And we've been working on the landing gear.

They've been the past two weeks.

They've disassembled landing gear, worked on tires, wheels, brakes and suspension with each one of these aircraft.

So every time we add to one of the next lessons for this puts them one step closer to being FAA certified AMT.

They'll have to go from here to a secondary program to finish up their certification before the FAA will recognize that.

And then there's testing that goes along with that.

Why do they have to go through all this training?

That's a great question, because every time we get on an airplane, whether it's a commercial airline or a private airborne airplane, we want to make sure that it's safe not only for the people getting on the airplane, but for the people on the ground as well.

So understand then what you have to do has an effect far beyond just what they're working on here today.

It's for the safety of the community and the and the airspace over our country in general.

So what do they actually learn about these airplanes?

Well, they learn all the operational portions of it.

What makes an airplane fly, What makes it go?

What makes it respond to the commands that we input into that.

And this is only one part of the school here in this class.

Like I said, they'll be learning about those specific airframe and powerplant portions, but the school is designed for an overview of all of aviation.

There are several courses of study here.

This way and one of them.

AM-T But there are also students here who plan to be pilots, students who plan to be air traffic controllers, and each one of those courses of study will specialize in their specific area as they get through each day.

Each student still has their academic portion of their day, just like they do at every other high school with the last portion of the day is spent with their specific course of study for aviation.

So what kind of jobs will they be getting after high school?

Well, the aviation industry, like so many industries right now, has some very specific shortages that are beginning to emerge.

When we talk about pilots, the average age of our airline pilot has now crept up into the to the 55 to 60 year old range.

And so we the FAA believes that over the course of the next ten years, we're going to have a tremendous shortage of pilots.

It's really important that we get students involved in that now because they are required to have significant experience before they can fly for an airline.

So if we get them started with this now, they can gain that experience through lots of other avenues to build that, to build that necessary requirements for what they have to have for their air traffic controllers are the same way each one of these industries have it have an average age that has crept up a lot and it's concerning the Labor Department and the FAA.

So they are working to address that.

That's the reason schools like this have become so invaluable for where we're trying to go with the future.

Airframe power plant mechanics are the same way in order to meet the criteria for what they need.

Not only are they going to have to complete this course of study, but this will make it faster for them to finish their national study that's required by the FAA.

We'd like to see them enter the workplace, both with the airlines as well as general aviation on small aircraft and private aircraft and business aircraft as well.

Likewise, with air traffic control, the students in this program are doing the same type thing all through the day.

They take their academics and then the last portion of the day they spend time on their air traffic control work, tremendous responsibility over the national airspace, understanding how to make sure that all the aircraft get to their destination safely.

And that's part of what they'll focus on here with this today.

From here, they will go to various areas.

They'll they'll spend some time at the Birmingham airport in the tower working with those air traffic controllers there and understanding how they do their jobs as well.

In the in the long run, all of these jobs have to work together.

Pilots have to understand what air traffic controllers do.

Air traffic controllers have to understand what pilot's needs are, and then maintenance technicians have to make sure that the aircraft will meet those demands.

And each one of those have.

Wow, that's great.

Could you tell me a little bit more about the parts in front of us?

So these parts are specific parts of an engine.

This particular piece is the is the camshaft.

We have a piston, a smaller piston in two cylinders.

Aircraft engines are designed on purpose to be quite simple when it comes to the design of an internal combustion engine.

Each of the ones you see behind us here are small four cylinder engines with four jugs, as we call them on each one.

So that to ease service, each one of these cylinders or jugs can be removed individually and serviced, and then they go back on the aircraft.

That's one of the beauties of the way, especially small aircraft engines work.

They can be serviced and kept running for significant long periods of time.

What other stand technology goes into working on these planes every single day?

So one of the things I stress to students so much of four years used to hear students tell me, I don't want to learn this because I'm never going to use this in the real world or I don't want to do this.

I'm never going to use this in the real world.

This actually puts all of the things that students sometimes wonder how they'll use into a practical application.

There are English studies learning how to write.

It's imperative that we be able to write a good report about what we've done so that so that other people can follow behind and take up the work behind us.

The math never ends.

I continue to tell students math that you think I'll never use again.

You use every day when you get out here on the aircraft.

Everything that we do has to do with my new measurements in the thousands of an inch that we have to be able to calculate and and use in a way that we can put the engine together to make it dependable.

Wow, that sounds great.

How many students are actually here?

This program started in 2022 with 10th graders because the curriculum is at least a two year program and seniors and juniors weren't eligible for it to start with.

Now, as things progressed, those will fill in those spots as we go.

So there are 14 students in the AMT program right now.

They're all learning the things that you see us doing behind us.

And then there are a limited number of students in each one of the others.

This school is operating in this building at the moment, but the vision vision is within the next year to have a building actually at the Bessemer Airport.

And so that's going to give us increased capabilities.

It's going to give us a little more involvement and opportunity to work with more flying aircraft.

Then in addition to the ones that we have static here in the air in the hangar, are there more places like this around the USA?

This one is pretty groundbreaking.

This is one of the very first programs of its kind in the United States.

I have visited another one that is at Lakeland, Florida.

It was probably I think it was the first program to set forth a system like this.

And the model, the model that it achieved has begun to grow and is extending out from there.

So but we're still in the early stages of getting high schoolers involved with this.

It's a great idea.

What kinds of companies could they work for after school?

So depending on which of these courses of study they're in, obviously the the pilots have an opportunity to go to the corporate world, the private world, and even commercial airlines at some point for a. AMT Their vision is generally to leave the program.

They can work immediately as an individual mechanic for a for specific company working, working on aircraft individually.

The manufacturers have several opportunities going on around us right now.

Right here in Alabama we have Airbus that has opened a huge plant in Mobile and is looking for additional people to work.

Delta's main maintenance hub is right next door in Georgia.

In Atlanta, they employ over 500 technicians.

It's right there in Atlanta, Georgia.

So they're always looking for additional technicians as well in the private sector.

Again, back to my point earlier about how we are we are losing the number of technicians that are necessary to maintain the field.

There are a lot of independent maintenance shops that have closed down here in Alabama over the last ten years.

And so it's my hope that some of these students will work for some time, gain additional experience and possibly open some of those new maintenance shops as well.

How many people have actually graduated from here?

None have graduated as of yet because we started with 10th graders.

And so those 10th graders are now 11th graders.

And then there were some ninth graders who started their 10th graders.

So no one has finished this program yet.

Next year, we'll have our first group of seniors that will finish out of here.

So what do you do here?

So I'm one of the instructors for AMT.

I actually retired last year from my regular job.

For 40 years I worked on heavy equipment.

I was a training instructor there and since this need was here, they ask if I could help fill in for this as well.

Partly because I am an AP mechanic already.

I've been an AMP mechanic for about ten years and worked on aircraft as a as both a hobby and as a part time position as well.

But it's always something that's just been a passion of mine.

So this was an opportunity to share my passion with young students.

How do you end up here?

So because the Aerospace and Aviation Academy is a charter school, it's open to any student.

So most of these students attended a different high school before they came here.

Each one applies specifically for a course of study.

And so as as students in other schools learn about this specialized training for each one of these aviation categories, we hope that they will express interest.

And as they do, they can apply individually.

Those students are chosen and and enrolled in each one of their specific academic roles.

So these people work on real airplanes.

They don't work on them yet, but it's our goal that they will sometime in the future.

An AMT mechanic, under the rules of the FAA, is qualified to work on everything from a hot air balloon to the space shuttle and everything in between.

They have to have specific training for each one of those.

I've been an MP for over ten years now.

I own my own airplane and helicopter and I understand the the significance of everything being right before we take off in an aircraft for me and my passengers.

And I want to make sure that each one of these people can achieve the same thing.

Wow, that's great.

Knowing that all the people that are working on the airplane have gone through lots of training they have.

Well, thank you, Mr. Scott.

I've learned so much.

And join us next week for another episode of Alabama STEM Explorers.

Thanks for watching.

Alabama STEM Explorers.

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Alabama STEM explorers is made possible by the generous support of the Holle Family Foundation established to honor the legacy of Brigadier General Everett Holle and his parents.

Evelyn and Fred Holle champions of servant leadership.