Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette As students in Michigan Technological University’s Summer Youth Program flight class awaited word on weather conditions Thursday, Airport Manager Dennis Hext brought them out to watch the afternoon’s SkyWest Airlines flight land.

By GARRETT NEESE

gneese@mininggazette.com

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP — Nineteen students learned about flying, aviation principles and fickle Copper Country weather in a weeklong class through Michigan Technological University’s Summer Youth Programs.

Members of the Civil Air Patrol teach the annual flight instruction class. They included teens from the Upper Peninsula and Wisconsin, and ones from further-away spots like Texas, Montana and the Dominican Republic.

“This is a very good group of kids,” said flight instructor Jeffrey Burl. “Very interested, very motivated… It’s fun teaching people who want to learn.”

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette As students in Michigan Technological University’s Summer Youth Program flight class awaited word on weather conditions Thursday, Airport Manager Dennis Hext brought them out to watch the afternoon’s SkyWest Airlines flight land.

Civil Air Patrol provides aerospace education to the community as one of the three core parts of its mission. As part of its emergency services, CAP pilots have flown COVID-19 tests from the U.P. to Grand Rapids and taken aerial photos of damage from spring flooding in Lake Linden.

The classes begin with grounding in basic aerodynamics before graduating to reading the instrument panel and reading navigational charts. They also practice on flight simulators before getting a shot at the real thing.

“Even though the simulators don’t have sticks, and don’t feel too much like an airplane, they wind up getting smooth and getting some good experience, which will help them,” Burl said. “…You get somebody who hasn’t flown before, they tend to do a lot of over-controlling, whereas these guys will be nice and smoothed out and doing a good job.”

Students also learn about the range of careers available in aviation: pilots, of course, but also air traffic controllers, dispatchers and a host of other jobs.

Thursday, students had been scheduled to fly with an instructor at the Houghton County Memorial Airport, even taking the controls for a bit themselves during a short trip around the Houghton area. Unfortunately, they first had to learn about another fact of aviation — weather delays.

Flight class 1 Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Planes are seen lined up at the Houghton County Memorial Airport as Civil Air patrol instructor await word on weather conditions Thursday, when students were slated to fly as part of a flight class through Michigan Technological University’s Summer Youth Programs. The flights were later rescheduled to Friday.

Instructors scrubbed Thursday afternoon’s flights because of poor visibility, but planned to try again Friday morning.

While they were waiting for news Thursday afternoon, students still got to watch a plane land.

Airport Manager Dennis Hext took the students to an adjacent spot undergoing construction work so they could watch the afternoon’s SkyWest flight land and taxi to the airport.

He pointed out where the plane would touch down: near red lights further down the runway, if they followed the glide slope correctly. And he told them about the procedure as the plane taxis in, which includes turning on thrust reversers to help the plane slow down. The SkyWest plane would be traveling about 100 mph as it landed, but slow to 10 to 20 as it approached its final spot.

“If you ever land and you hear the big roar as they land, that’s what happening,” he said.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette As students in Michigan Technological University’s Summer Youth Program flight class awaited word on weather conditions Thursday, Airport Manager Dennis Hext brought them out to watch the afternoon’s SkyWest Airlines flight land.

Even without being up in the air yet, students were having fun.

Mark Lynch of Appleton is entering his senior year of high school, and thinking about going to Michigan Tech. He’s also interested in flying, making this week an ideal way to learn about both.

“It’s been good to check it out,” he said. “We’ve been on the flight simulator all week, and that’s been fun — learning how the plane flies, learning about instruments and navigation.”

If he goes into aviation, he hopes to start in the military before eventually becoming a commercial pilot.

Caroline Frumanski of Escanaba had taken part in previous Summer Youth Program classes in mechanical engineering and medical physiology. During those visits, she’d heard how great the flight program was.

“It’s wonderful,” she said. “We spend a lot of time on flight simulators where we can choose different aircrafts, settings and airports, where we can get a better feel for flying without the danger of flying.”

She tested the Cessna Skyhawk, the same plane the students fly for real in the class. She flew out of the Houghton County airport, but also San Francisco’s.

Taking advantage of the low stakes, Frumanski also tried landing on the Golden Gate Bridge.

After some entertaining failures, she nailed it.

Frumanski is considering a career in aviation, though she’s more interested in building and designing planes than flying them.

During this week’s classes, she learned about a particular job that sounded exciting.

“We got to hear from a pilot who talked about the different roles on an airplane, including a mechanic,” she said. “That sounded like an interesting career choice.”