The Aviation Museum of New Hampshire is looking for the next high school to host its student plane-building program.
Begun in 2019 in partnership with the Manchester School of Technology, students work alongside volunteer mentors to build a two-seat, full-sized aircraft as part of a credit-earning course. The completed airplane is then sold on the open market, with proceeds used to pay for the school’s next aircraft build.
Following the success of the program in Manchester, the nonprofit Aviation Museum established similar programs at Lebanon High School in 2024 and Farmington High School in 2025. Under the program, about 50 students are currently building aircrafts as part of their high school classwork.
The museum is seeking a fourth district ready to add “Airplane-Building” to its course line-up for the 2027-28 school year.
The program is open to any educational institution enrolling students of high school age, including public, private, charter and parochial schools. It is open to schools located anywhere in New Hampshire, or in Massachusetts’s Essex or Middlesex counties.
The program is offered at no direct cost to local taxpayers. The Aviation Museum of N.H. will commit to raising start-up funds of $320,000 needed to launch the plane-building program, after which it will be self-funding. The Aviation Museum will also supply a team of trained adult mentors with backgrounds in the aviation or aerospace industries to work alongside the students.
A partner in the venture is Tango Flight, Inc., a Texas-based educational nonprofit specializing in student plane-build programs. Tango Flight provides accredited curriculum to support the program, plus carries liability insurance covering the program and the aircraft.
Under normal circumstances, students are expected to take a minimum of two school years to complete an aircraft.
“In Manchester, it actually took students three years to finish the first aircraft, but that was in part because the pandemic shut down schools for nearly a year,” said Jeff Rapsis, executive director of the Aviation Museum of N.H.
The Manchester program has since completed a second plane, which is due for FAA certification this summer; the school has started building its third aircraft. The programs in Lebanon and Farmington are both working on their first aircraft.
Proposals are due by Oct. 1. A copy of the Request for Proposals may be downloaded online at www.aviationmuseumofnh.org.
