Photo caption: A collection of planes is parked behind the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ hangar at Fairbanks International Airport’s East Ramp. UAF photo by JR Ancheta.
A burly Boeing 727 airliner rests behind the hangar, but the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ aviation maintenance program has built its reputation by focusing on the small stuff.
Little planes aren’t in vogue at most Lower 48 aviation programs. That’s not the case at the UAF-owned hangar at Fairbanks International Airport’s East Ramp. It’s a Bush pilot’s dream — a jumbo workshop filled with a collection of old Cessnas, Beechcrafts and other petite planes in various states of disassembly. The cockpits are cramped, the upholstery is torn, and the paint jobs are thin.
“We like the small planes,” said Roger Weggel ’00, ’17, one of three full-time instructors in the program, as he gestured around the hangar. “That makes it feel a little more like Alaska.”
Photo caption: David Swenson and Timothy Bauer, students in UAF's aviation maintenance program, work together to inspect a landing gear assembly during a class. UAF photo by JR Ancheta.
The Last Frontier’s romantic history of backcountry flight is an unmistakable theme for the yearlong program, which is offered through UAF’s Community and Technical College. That focus on Bush travel has made aviation maintenance popular with a wildly diverse collection of students — enrollees include high school graduates, soldiers looking for new careers, mechanically inclined retirees, and doctors and lawyers who own their own planes.
The CTC aviation maintenance program has roots in a curriculum started by the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District in the late 1960s. The importance of aviation in pre-pipeline Alaska was reflected in a rare school-sponsored program that focused on airplane repairs.
UAF took over the program nearly four decades ago, but the courses still exhibit a do-it-yourself vibe. Students learn how to work on the hydraulics of a modern jetliner, but they also must be capable of improvising a repair on a broken-down Super Cub in a remote village.
Rarities in modern aviation, like the Pratt and Whitney R-985 radial engine prominently displayed in the shop, are still used by some small carriers in Alaska. That means they’re part of the program at UAF, said program advisor Kevin Alexander ’96, ’05.
“In the Lower 48, they just order another part,” he said with a smile. “We fix things here.”
‘Challenging, but so exciting’
The philosophy has made the program a popular one — students come from everywhere, almost literally. Alexander said he’s had pupils from at least four continents throughout his years at UAF. Between a quarter and a third of students are women, an unusually high number for a trade program.
It’s routine for classes to feature fresh-out-of-high-school teenagers, ex-military personnel and well-off professionals who are aviation enthusiasts.
“Those three people might be working on the same engine at the same time,” Alexander said. “We get such a diverse class with diverse interests and diverse backgrounds. It makes it challenging, but so exciting.”
The 2018-2019 class included a newly graduated Talkeetna homeschooler who had been working on planes since he was 9 years old, along with a 41-year-old former Army pilot and self-described “aviation nut” who owned two small planes. An Eagle River man wanted to learn how to service the small fleet his family owns for their remote hunting lodge. A Fairbanks woman searched for her next career after working in construction and auto repair, and another Fairbanksan arrived with no mechanical experience and a resume filled with jobs ranging from musician to office worker.
Colleen Grijalva, a 28-year-old mother of three, joined the program after leaving the Navy. She spent her military career working on aviation electric components, but the field was so specialized that Grijalva never spent time inside an actual plane.
That changed quickly this year, with introductions to everything from engine components to rivets.
“In the Lower 48, they just order another part,” he said with a smile. “We fix things here.”
“I’ve always liked aircraft, I just never had an opportunity to work on them,” Grijalva said as she studied a wheel assembly diagram in a three-ring notebook. “I’ve never been a mechanic of any sort, so it’s kind of flying by the seat of my pants learning about all the parts.”
Alexander said graduates from the program have 100 percent employment — anyone who wants a job in the aviation industry has been able to find one. Because an aging workforce has created demand for new mechanics, federal regulators gave UAF permission to accept 30 students a year, five more than its certification allows.
The workload is daunting. Most aviation maintenance programs run from 18-24 months. At UAF, the curriculum is packed into a continuous year of study, five days a week, eight hours a day, which Alexander likened to “a full-time job with homework.”
By the end, students earn a certificate or associate’s degree and are eligible to take the Federal Aviation Administration mechanic’s test. About 60 percent of the curriculum is dedicated to work in the shop, but Alexander said the workload involves students’ heads as much as their hands. The remaining 40 percent focuses on classroom work, including sections on mechanical theory, federal aviation regulations and legal requirements.
“The image of the grease monkey is long gone,” Alexander said. “Today you need to be part mechanic, part lawyer and part private investigator.”
Learning a little bit of everything
The aviation maintenance program moved into the current location in 2013, and the collection of aircraft that followed is as eclectic as the students in the program.
The donated Boeing 727, which greets visitors as they arrive at the East Ramp hangar, is decorated with the FedEx logo from its former life. Two UH-1E Huey helicopters were offered by the military. A 1978 Beechcraft King Air 200, which was donated by Bering Air in May, is joined by Pipers, Cessnas, and a half-dozen other small single-engine planes, several of them given to the program by local pilots. Students sometimes bring in their own planes to add more variety.
It’s a bit of a rag-tag collection, and most of the planes haven’t flown in years, but they all have a purpose. Electrical systems and engines differ on many of the models, giving future mechanics a look at a variety of planes. On the Dacron-coated Bush planes, students learn how to make repairs to the taut fabric that cuts the weight of many small aircraft.
“We’re training for the Alaska environment, so we spend a little more time on those things,” said Arvid Weflen, who has taught aviation maintenance classes in Fairbanks for more than 40 years. “But we have to cover everything else, too, just like the other schools.”
Weflen said he learned to appreciate the value of UAF’s approach in an unexpected way. In the early 1990s, he’d grown discouraged with the program. He wondered whether its end-of-the-road status was preventing it from keeping up with the industry.
He took a sabbatical and spent the year traveling and gathering teaching tips from aviation maintenance schools with a more modern focus.
Instead of envy, Weflen returned to Fairbanks with a renewed sense of pride. At every stop, he walked away convinced that UAF’s students were the best prepared he had seen.
“We are easily the equal of the best schools anywhere,” Weflen said. “I was amazed when I was on that trip. It was obvious we could hold our head up high.”
Instructors and students said that a focus on self-reliance and versatility adds depth to the program that would be tough to duplicate elsewhere. By the end of the course, students can weld, work on any type of engine and diagnose problems on everything from a passenger jet to an ultralight.
“They try to introduce us to as many things as they can at a time,” said Dylan Cox, who entered the program after graduating from high school in Talkeetna. “They really do a good job of giving you a well-rounded experience. It lets you go off in a lot of different directions.”
Photo caption: UAF aviation maintenance student James Trizzino, right, talks to Assistant Professor Roger Weggel while learning about the landing gear components on a Beechcraft King Air. UAF photo by JR Ancheta.
James Trizzino is a former Fort Wainwright soldier who enrolled after the Army phased out the Kiowa helicopters that he was trained to fly. He isn’t even sure if he’ll pursue a career as a mechanic after completing the program.
Whatever happens next, Trizzino said, he has no regrets.
“This program’s been a blast,” he said as he pieced together the landing gear assembly on a Beechcraft. “The amount of things you learn is the best part of all of it.”
Trizzino, who owns ultralight and Kitfox airplanes, also shares a common trait with the others in the program: Everybody here loves planes.
Weflen tried to retire about a decade ago, but it didn’t stick — he came back a few years later to fill a temporary vacancy and never left. Alexander is a fourth-generation airplane mechanic, and many of the students are pilots or plane owners.
Weflen chuckled at the connection that reliably draws instructors and students to UAF’s aviation maintenance program, year after year.
“All of us are enthusiasts, and the students have to eat, drink and think airplanes,” he said. “I think all of us here are airplane nuts.”