CLEARFIELD, UT— Students at Clearfield High School are getting hands-on experience in repairing airplanes at Hill Aerospace Museum as part of an aeronautical mechanics course. On Tuesday, a small group of students lined up around a C-7 Caribou that was damaged during a windstorm last year.
Using a hydraulic lift, several students were lifted to the plane’s rudder to assess what tools were needed to remove it. Museum curator Nathan Myers said the rudder was anything but stable, with countless dents and rope strapping it onto the airplane.
To prepare for this week’s field trip to the museum, 15 students in Chief Master Sgt. Darrel Gronau’s aircraft structural repair course have spent the past three months learning about typical structural repairs, including how to work with rivets, how to repair latches and how to patch the skin on an aircraft.
The students will spend a couple of days getting the tail off, then the next several months fabricating new parts, putting the rudder back together and applying a fresh coat of paint before putting it back on the plane.
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