FCCTC plans for aviation class

After half a year of success with the aviation program at Phil Campbell High School, the Franklin County Career Technical Center is looking to expand its curriculum and begin offering aviation to all students at the FCCTC.

FCCTC Principal Jonathan King said the aviation program is not official yet because they are still determining how many students would be interested, but the hope is to begin offering classes in fall 2020.

“It’s just another opportunity to have students come here and learn about potential career paths,” King said. “Right now there are endless opportunities with aviation.”

FCCTC currently is offering the aviation class onsite at Phil Campbell, and King said that has drawn interest from several other schools.

“I have heard from several principals who said students had come to them expressing an interest in having that opportunity as well,” King said.

King said he has heard a lot of positive remarks from the Phil Campbell community about the opportunities aviation classes have brought to their students as they decide on future career paths.

King said having the one year of aviation at Phil Campbell would be a benefit to FCCTC if aviation was to be offered on the main campus.

“We had to go through a lot with curriculum to really learn what would be the best curriculum at Phil Campbell and the best curriculum to fit high school students,” King said. King said he thinks having that process out of the way would make things run a lot smoother on the FCCTC campus.

The tentative plan, King said, would be to offer aviation classes in the morning on a flight simulator. Classes would be taught the same way they are at Phil Campbell.

It has not been determined yet who the flight instructor will be on the main campus, since Phil Campbell instructor Jason Evans teaches classes with his own flight school in the morning.

There are still a lot of details to iron out between now and August if aviation is added at the FCCTC. The FCCTC would purchase an additional flight simulator for students to learn on, and logistics would have to be sorted with transporting students to the campus.

“It’s something we think could be beneficial here, and we are excited about that,” King said.