Salt Lake City, UTAH – Keystone Aviation, a TAC Air company, has donated a Piper Seneca to the Salt Lake City Community College aviation department. The aircraft’s engines were removed, its wings demated from the fuselage, and all components were loaded and transported by students to the college’s Salt Lake City aviation campus. According to Todd Baird, a mechanical aviation instructor with the college, the aircraft made an impact starting with the disassembly. Baird added, “With the initial disassembly and transport, our Return To Service internship program was given an opportunity here that does not come along every day.”
The fuselage and wings were transported via trailer from Provo to Salt Lake City.
The aircraft will initially be part of an educational reconstruction experience for approximately 200 students, who will be given the opportunity to participate first-hand with repairs. “We’ve used aircraft from all levels of condition for teaching purposes,” according to Todd Baird, who continues, “the aircraft is a great value to our campus and the students that will be working on it. They’ll get to participate first hand on installing wings, flight controls, engine controls, installing the engines, making the necessary wiring harness repairs and sheet metal repairs.” Once reassembled, the aircraft will continue to benefit students for course work in sheet metal, hydraulics, paint, power plant, exhaust systems, turbochargers and fuel injection systems.
College officials further stated that recruiting efforts will “most definitely” be given a boost with the donation.
Kimberly Page, COO of Keystone Aviation explained, “It’s in our mission statement to elevate people’s lives. By donating this aircraft to Salt Lake Community College, we hope to be a small part of enabling a future aviation mechanic to reach their goals.”