Plane built by Sutter County students has successful inaugural flight

Seven Sutter County students spent the last 30 months building an airplane and their hard work took flight for the first time Saturday morning.

The LSA Teen Airplane Build is a program created by the Northern California Aerospace Initiative (NCAI) with help from the AeroSTEM Academy to give high school students in the Yuba-Sutter area hands-on experience using science, technology, engineering and mathematics – known as STEM education – in a real-world setting.

In the program, students learned the skills necessary to build from scratch a functional Van’s RV-12 light sport plane, which was certified by the Federal Aviation Authority and can fly at speeds of up to 138 mph. The plane was deemed airworthy on Sept. 6.

The students present at the event were Tiffany Chao, Stanley Ward, Logan Samson, Jason Kolb and Drew Gutierrez of Core Charter School in Marysville along with John Kroeger of River Valley High School in Yuba City. Silas Foster also worked on the plane but was not present for the inaugural flight.

“It really has given us a completely different high school experience than a lot of other high schooler,” Chao said. “And its just a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The plane taxied down the runway for everyone to see before taking off around 9:10 a.m. among a crowd of cheers and applause. The plane passed by in the air before landing almost 20 minutes later.

Lead mentor Dave Lane, a former airman and United Airlines captain, spoke afterwards praising each student who committed to finishing the project.

“Only 35 percent of the people that start and build an airplane finish it,” Lane said. “These guys are finishers.”

As Lane talked about each student individually, they received “a diploma of some sorts” certifying their work and congratulating them on their success.

In addition to Lane, five other mentors helped the students; Dallan Reese, Jeff Ebey, Ken Hall, Bill Kolb and Luke Miller. And their help was not forgotten by Kroeger.

“This program really could not have happened without our mentors,” Kroeger said. “They’ve been here the whole time, every step of the way. They literally taught us everything that we know.”

The next version of the program will be run by AeroSTEM Academy and will have its own dedicated campus building at Sutter County Airport. More information is available at www.aerostem.org.

This story was originally published September 14, 2019 at 4:31 PM with the headline "Plane built by Sutter County students has successful inaugural flight."