Warren County Memorial Airport Pilots and Technicians Corp (Jerry Lassiter)

I am the volunteer president of a year-old chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 1700 in a small rural town in middle Tennessee. We are a 501(c)(3) educational charity and are building an aviation program for students 8 to 17 in the Warren County school system.

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Our chapter was initially chartered as the Warren County Memorial Airport Pilots and Technicians Corp, but when EAA accepted us as a chapter in their international organization, we changed the name to EAA Chapter 1700 Warren County TN Inc in February 2024.

The aviation industry provides great, good-paying jobs in many different disciplines. From airframe and powerplant technicians, to pilots, to electronic technicians, to administrative personnel, to airport management, the list goes on and on. Few students are aware of the opportunities during and after high school to make choices to take advantage of the jobs that are available.

EAA Chapter 1700 and our sister 501(c)(3) educational charity, the Aviation Leadership Academy, have developed a joint venture to make sure students in rural areas with few career choices have opportunities to learn about aviation and to participate in aviation-related education from K-12 and beyond.

We recently purchased a 6,200 sq ft hangar on 2 acres of land to provide a campus for the students. The hangar is an old industrial building that needs LOTS of work before we can safely bring students in. It will require deep cleaning from top to bottom, roof repairs, siding repairs, painting, reconfiguration of the classrooms inside, painting inside and out, and complete modifications for the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Phase 1 of our project will be to refurbish and remodel the hangar in preparation for the 2026-27 school year. The hangar will be used to give hands-on experience to students for aviation theory through actually building an aircraft. We currently have 4 aircraft that have been donated for student projects. We cannot bring students in until Phase 1 is completed.

Phase 2 will be to make preparations to build a 10,000 sq ft state-of-the-art training center for the academy to provide much more extensive training beginning the 2027-28 school year. Students who choose to become pilots will be able to take and pass the FAA ground school and begin flight training as early as they are authorized by the FAA. Students will be able to have their FAA Aircraft, single engine, land license by the time they are juniors.

We have already received confirmation from a flight simulator company to provide 15 brand new networked flight simulators. We will use them in the temporary hangar classrooms until the larger facility is complete.

Our chapter website