Thanks to a little help from community members, four students at James Valley Career and Technology Center are building a remote-control kit airplane. The wooden motorized plane is powered by gasoline and will have a 60-inch wing span when completed.
"It's going to be fun to see what it looks like when we're done," said student Bobby Orr. "We started out with a bunch of little pieces of wood."
Gene Hanson, vice president of Fisher Flying Products Inc. in Edgeley, donated the Dakota Hawk kit after talking to Julie Skunberg, technology education teacher at the Career and Technology Center. The plane is a Jackson Manufacturing product, which does manufacturing for Fisher Flying Products.
Not realizing that the company built remote control planes, Skunberg asked Hanson if he knew where she could find one for the students to build, she said. As they talked about the project, Hanson decided to donate the plane.
"We thought it would be good for the class," he said.
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The students, Orr, Alex Kitsch, Blake Lukach and Raph Borseth, are building the plane in their Foundations of Technology class. They are getting a lot of help from Dave Nelson, president of Buffalo City RC Squadron, and Jim Fritz, club member. The men have spent a lot of time helping the students build the plane during class time.
"They teach the little things we wouldn't know to do," Skunberg said.
She can't say enough about what Hanson, Nelson and Fritz have done for the class. The project wouldn't be possible without their help, she said.
The project is a lot of fun, Nelson said. The hard part is helping the students without doing the work. But the students are equal to the task.
"They're doing a great job," he said.
The students are enjoying the project too, Kitsch said. The project is really hands on and definitely been a challenge.
"This is the hardest project we've done so far," he said.
Before building the plane, students in Skunberg's Foundations of Technology class used engineering software to make a 3D design and another program to build a bridge.
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"Now we're actually taking a design and actually putting it together," Skunberg said.
With this project, students are learning a variety of things, including design, assembly and how to follow blueprints, Skunberg said.
The students are also learning about the technology of flight, Nelson said.
"Building this is pretty much like building a full-size plane," he said. "It's just smaller."
Learning those concepts are the main reason the students are doing the project. But actually having a chance to fly the plane is the "pay off" at the end, Nelson said.
The students have been working on the project for the last three weeks, Skunberg said. The goal is to fly the plane the last week of school, May 23 through 26.
Nelson and Fritz will be on hand to help. They will use a buddy system, with one of them and a student each having a remote, she said. If something goes wrong, the club members can use their experience flying to take over and correct any problems.
"Which is nice," Skunberg said, "so we know they won't crash."
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As the students get the hang of it, they will have a chance to fly on their own.
Another fun part of the project is picking out colors and a design for the paint job, Skunberg said. They have a photo of the Dakota Hawk that is painted like a bird. The students plan to change the colors.
"They picked out blue and white so it'll be a blue jay," she said.
Skunberg hopes to find a way for other students to do the project. Nelson suggested selling or raffling off the completed plane to pay for the next year's kit, she said.
This isn't the first time Fisher Flying Products has helped students build a kit plane, Hanson said. In the 1990s the company gave a special price to a school in Colorado so a group of middle school students could build a plane that actually carried two passengers.
Sun staff reporter Holly Jessen can be reached at (701) 952-8452 or by e-mail at hollyn@jamestownsun.com
