♪♪♪ - At San Diego Miramar College, a site that's steeped in aviation history.

Students are starting to take flight aeronautically and academically - There's tons and tons of jobs.

Places like East Coast, Midwest, overseas as well.

- I started realizing like, that is where I want to spend all my time, and I feel like that's what I'm meant to do.

- I really love getting my hands dirty.

It just, the environment I never really experienced I would have - For these students.

A career in aviation is more than just a dream.

It also fills a need.

- There is definitely a pilot shortage and a mechanic shortage in the aviation industry.

Over the last couple decades, there's been a lot of rule changes.

A lot of mechanics and pilots are retiring from the workforce in a convenient time for anybody who's trying to look for that job.

Right now.

Our goal here at Miramar is to have everything they need to for hands-on training, not just classroom training.

- San Diego, Miramar College opened in 1969, but its aviation history stretches all the way back to the 1930s.

Originally a World War I military base, it became a major training ground for both US Marine and Navy pilots.

The Marine Corps air base remains a few miles south of the school.

Active duty members can receive general education from Miramar at the base.

Today, the college offers two FAA approved aviation programs, the Aviation Operations Program, which trains future pilots and business leaders and the Aviation Maintenance Technology Program, which teaches students to become aircraft mechanics.

- A lot of these aviation programs aren't well known and in colleges sometimes they're not the first program people think of for funding and things like that.

- Yeah.

Wes Lundberg is president of Miramar College together with Jerry Buckley, the president of Reedley College, their co-founders of the California Community College Aviation Alliance.

They hope having an alliance will give them more leverage when asking airlines, aerospace companies and other industry partners for resources.

- In the case of our students here, many of them can come here tuition free, but that doesn't account for the cost of FAA testing.

If they're a pilot, they have to have an individual private instructor for the airtime and their tools all come to 15 to $30,000.

That's a lot of money out of pocket.

So we're trying to form more of a structure that allows various industry partners to either contribute equipment, provide personnel support, and or help our students afford get us very costly training.

- Training like spending time on a flight simulator is crucial for aspiring pilots.

Miramar offers at least 15 hours worth of flight simulator experience before students graduate and begin flying real airplanes.

- We have yet to learn aeronautical charts, but what we see up here is a route that you would take later on in the lab.

- On the maintenance side, students are learning how to repair magnetos, a critical part of the engine's ignition system look like.

- When this spins, when this finger matches up with this piece, it's going to jump that gap.

- Another group is working on the aircraft itself.

- Right now we have a project taking off one of the wings off of Cessna 150.

I've never been one to like sit at a desk or office type jobs.

I figured this would be perfect for me.

- Many graduates go on to work for major airlines and aviation companies throughout the San Diego region and beyond.

- I got the associate's degree that they offer here in professional aeronautics.

I fly for SkyWest Airlines.

It's the largest regional carrier.

We have all four American, United, Delta, and Alaska as our partners.

You get to see really cool overnights.

I love gonna Monterey and San Luis Obispo and San Francisco.

- I'm currently a lead technician at Coast Aviation Services, so we work on services and vision jets and on a day-to-day basis, I am wrenching looking through log books, doing, finishing up work orders and everything.

I dunno, it's just an environment that I really, really enjoy.

I, I love all of it.

- I feel really humbled and privileged to be in the position that I'm in where I'm gonna be able to hopefully help fulfill some of that shortage coming up.

- There's a lot to be proud of.

You know, you think about the, the aviation industry and what, what's there and, and the history with it.

The service it provides, how it's helped drive economic engines for society as well as growth in in general and industry.

It's huge, you know, and it's not one that we typically think of right away.