Dreams Take Flight

Editors: These articles have been downloaded from the Web for your reading convenience. At the beginning of each article is a link to the Web document, but many archives require registration and/or payment. Actual clips of many of these articles are available. If you require a paper document, just let Dori know and she will fax or mail your requests.

Dreams Take Flight - at the Yakima Herald-Republic

6/4/03
734 words
Yakima Herald-Republic

Dreams Take Flight

By DORI HARRELL
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

Just after Tyler Graff graduates this morning, he'll be flying high, literally.

Graff will soar off in a red and white Cessna 152 II he helped refurbish
with his own hands.

He'll take the plane on its test flight. It hasn't seen the sky in more
than six years.

But this past nine months, Graff and 29 students in the YV Tech aviation
maintenance technology course restored the 1978 Cessna, from rebuilding
the engine and replacing the interior to repainting the engine cover.

YV Tech supplies vocational training to Yakima Valley high school students.

Graff will be the first student ever to test fly an aircraft built by the
class in its 24-year history. Instructor Ron Nulph had taken the controls
of the previous eight rebuilt planes.

"I'm not nervous about it," said Graff on Tuesday as he admired the Cessna,
which will cruise at about 120 miles an hour and has a 115-horsepower
engine. "I know the work that's been done on it, and the students that
worked on it. I know it's going to fly."

Graff and a handful of classmates graduate from the course today. The
teenager is also a senior at West Valley High School and has been a
licensed pilot since March. He's the only pilot in the aviation mechanics
class.

He said he views the plane as one of his biggest accomplishments.

Since the class finished the nine-month project last week, the two-seater
has been given a ground test and been approved by a Federal Aviation
Administration inspector. It passed with flying colors.

Graff said he started taking flying lessons just after signing up for the
course two years ago. He trained on a Cessna 152.

He now flies at least once a week and serves as vice president of the
Yakima Aero Club. He also works part time for Airclassic Rebuilders &
Avionics, which operates near the airport.

"I'm only 17, and I helped rebuild this craft that will fly," Graff said.
"It's beautiful."

His classmates think so, too.

About 10 gathered around the Cessna after finals Tuesday to admire their
handiwork.

Andreux Betancourt, a 19-year-old senior at Eisenhower High School,
couldn't walk by the plane without polishing it. He frequently picked up
the front of his plaid shirt and rubbed the nose, a door, the tail,
whatever he happened to be standing near.

"It feels good to finish and detail an airplane like that," Betancourt
said. "When people see it, they'll say, yeah, Andreux ? and all of us ?
did that."

The aircraft was donated by Eugene O'Dell, chairman of the Aviation
Technology Advisory Committee. He paid all the costs for the renovation,
about $6,000, and will take possession of the plane again once it has
proven itself.

Nulph said it typically takes three to four years to fully refurbish an
aircraft.

"That these students did this in nine months speaks to their dedication,"
Nulph said.

The class is held in a 6,000-square-foot hangar near the airport. It now
holds a newer-model helicopter and an unfinished biplane made by the
students from scratch.

The hangar also contains a two-seater built by a former World War II
pilot. The owner has allowed the class to work on it as a project. So far,
the class members have redesigned the rudder system and installed a
high-efficiency alternator.

Students earn up to 30 college credits through the course.

Graff plans to attend an aviation mechanics program at Big Bend Community
College in Moses Lake this fall and eventually hopes to earn a bachelor's
degree.

No matter what, he knows flying is in his future, both today and for the
long term.

"It's a sensation of being free," Graff said. "It's also amazing to know I
can put something together and it will fly."

Top of page