Bringing the airport to the students

What if we could bring an immersive aerospace experience to where the students are, rather than coordinate a field trip to a local airport?

The idea of showcasing the aviation industry to 200 students a day while they are at school is exactly what Oklahoma-based Heartland Aeronautical Experience is planning to do.

“We will bring the mobile classroom to the school,” says Heartland Aeronautical Experience’s founder Bill Beck.

That mobile classroom will include ATC and aircraft simulators. Participants will see and hear real-time ATC transmissions, local weather and radar imagery, local aircraft traffic, and experience fixed- and rotor-wing simulators.

Heartland’s mission is similar to many other aspirational organizations: “Inspiring individuals to choose aerospace careers.”

It is the mobility that makes it stand out. The non-profit already has a retired mobile ATC trailer on hand. Heartland is seeking sponsors to donate tax-deductible dollars to help deliver this plan from vision to reality.

“Once operational, this mobile classroom will expose aviation to 1,000 students each week,” says Beck. “Our nonprofit organization’s goal is to ‘be a headhunter,’ and show students the diverse spectrum of aerospace career opportunities, as well as give them a goal they can reach by staying in school, and taking the classes and necessary training.”

“We would ask those entities which could assist Heartland Aeronautical Experience in making this project come to fruition to please do so with great haste,” says Jerry M. Johnson, superindendent of Bethel Public Schools in Shawnee, Oklahoma. “Every year that it takes for this project to become a reality is another year that we will lose a class of students to graduation and their opportunity to recognize the many positives of the Heartland Aeronautical Experience will be lost.”

Contact Heartland Aeronautical Experience at 405-964-6888, [email protected], or at haeaero.org.