Building a plane where the Wright Brothers did

By Kip Tabb | Outer Banks Voice on September 6, 2023

Instructor Joey Tynch and students showing vertical stabilizer, the first part of an aircraft that will take two years to build. (Photos by Kip Tabb/OBV)

Cutting the ribbon on the new FFHS Aviation Lab. (Lot R): Aviation Lab Instructor Rear Admiral (Ret.) Joey Tynch, Dave Hallac, Superintendent of National Parks of Eastern NC, Dr. Shannon Castillo Director of Career and Technical Education for Dare County Schools, Dare County Schools Superintendent Steve Basnight. (Photos by Kip Tabb/OBV)

Dave Hallac, Superintendent of National Parks of Eastern NC, speaking at the ribbon cutting. (Photos by Kip Tabb/OBV)

Dare Count School Superintendent Steve Basnight speaking at the ribbon cutting. (Photos by Kip Tabb/OBV)

Aviation Lab Instructor Rear Admiral (Ret.) Joey Tynch speaking at the ribbon cutting. (Photos by Kip Tabb/OBV)

Aviation Lab students front to back. Senior Preston Benner, Junior Cameron Gabbert, Senior Luke Rubino. (Photos by Kip Tabb/OBV)

 

In the First Flight High Aviation Lab, students will be aircraft builders

An airplane will once again be built at the Wright Brothers Memorial in Kill Devil Hills. One hundred and twenty years after Wilbur and Orville Wright built and flew the world’s first aircraft that could take off, land and be controlled in flight, students from the First Flight High School Aviation Lab will be building a two-seat single-engine airplane on the grounds of the Memorial.

The project, a joint effort between Dare County Schools and the National Park Service, will locate the workshop for the project at what was once a storage area for lawn mowers, Dare County Schools Superintendent Steve Basnight said in his opening remarks at the Sept. 5 event celebrating the opening of the Aviation Lab.

Inside the lab, a shining vertical stabilizer has already been completed. Constructed of aircraft aluminum, it weighs perhaps 15 pounds and is the first step in a process that will take two years to complete. When the aircraft is finished, students who are part of the lab will take a flight from the Wright Brothers Airport.

“Today we embark on a two-year project where local students from First Flight High School will …build a flyable airplane on the very spot where Orville and Wilbur Wright achieved first flight on December 17, 1903,” Dave Hallac, Superintendent of the National Parks of Eastern NC, told the gathering.

Attributing a quote to Jimmy Buffet to “go fast enough to get there, but slow enough to see,” he urged students to reflect on the legacy of the Wright Brothers.

“Think as you’re building this incredible airplane, what it was like for the Wright Brothers here…Rarely do we get the chance to tangibly explore the connection between modern flight and the achievements of the Wright brothers,” he said.

In his remarks Superintendent Basnight credited Assistant Superintendent Steve Blackstock with suggesting the idea. “I’ve got to give credit to Mr. Steve Blackstock who brought this idea to Dare [County Schools] about the possibility of building a plane,” he said. “He walked in and told Dr. [Shannon] Castillo that, ‘You know, we probably could build a plane.’ And I can’t imagine the look on her face that day.”

In an interview after the ribbon cutting, Dr. Castillo, Director of Career and Technical Education for Dare County Schools, said that after Blackstock introduced his idea at a meeting, “the next morning, I went online and started doing some research and found this program called Tango Flight and sent an email to them.” Learning the location of Dare County, “they called not even an hour later.”

In his remarks, Basnight explained that First Flight High School was the natural location for the Aviation Lab, and in discussing where on the campus the aircraft could be built, school administrators asked themselves, “’What if we could build it where the Wright Brothers built their plane?’” Once the idea emerged to build the aircraft it in the shed “where they built it,” he added, “there was really no pulling back.”

There is, perhaps, no one as qualified to teach the course as Rear Admiral (Ret.) Joey Tynch the instructor. Addressing the crowd in his dress white uniform.

“When you retire from the military, there’s a list of things that you can wear your uniform again for. And one of those items is listed as events of tremendous significance,” he told the attendees.

He went on to emphasize how important the learning process would be for the students. The first group of 23 students is comprised of juniors and seniors.

“The Wright Brothers said that it was possible to fly without a motor. But it was not possible to fly without skill and knowledge. And I look at these 23 young men…beside me. I know there’s a lot of skill and knowledge already there,” he said.

Although three female students did apply and would have been accepted, administrators and Tynch said that scheduling conflicts prevented them from being in the first-year class.

In an interview with the Voice after the ribbon cutting, Tynch, who grew up in Rocky Hock, expanded on his background in the Navy.

I was a helicopter pilot. I flew for about 20 years,” he said, adding that “I ran a provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan on the ground.” He also mentioned that he has flown fixed wing aircraft and is currently in the process of getting recertified.

It was his daughter, First Flight High senior Anna Tynch, who told him about the program and Tynch noted that “I couldn’t pass on it.”

For the students, the lab offers a chance to be challenged and to follow a dream, a dream that includes a flight in the airplane.

“I’m a junior. I’ll be flying when I’m a senior if all goes well,” Cameron Gabbert said. “I want to go into my aerospace. There’s not a lot of people that are pilots, not a lot of people that are maintaining the planes. It’s a great opportunity to do something I love to do, fly…and a real opportunity for me to learn.”

Although the seniors in the class will not be part of the final build, they are making plans to be there for the flight.

“I’ll have to come back to fly it,” Luke Rubino said.

In conjunction with the opening of the FFHS Aviation Lab, the National Park Service is launching a virtual video series.

It’s called the Wright Flight Academy. We will chronicle the airplane construction while connecting this to the Wright Brothers story,” Hallac said.

In an interview with the Voice after the ribbon cutting, Hallac said plans call for some of the aircraft to be assembled in the work shwhere the Wright Brothers assembled their Wright Flyer, although when that will happen has not yet been determined.

“It’s what’s going be happening in one of the camp buildings. They’ll set up in there and visitors can come and see that happening while they visit,” he said.

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