ATLANTA (Dec. 7, 2023) – Last week, the Duluth campus of Aviation Institute of Maintenance (AIM) and Fulton Leadership academy kicked off their dual enrollment program. AIM welcomed three educators and twenty junior and senior high school students from Fulton to tour the campus and participate in a pre-flight inspection with AIM instructors, who provided demonstrations of the hand-motions Air Traffic Control uses to guide pilots and aircraft mechanics through taxiing an aircraft safely around the runway. The students visited the metallic structures shop, where they learned about sheet metal and riveting techniques to create sheet metal airplane projects to commemorate the experience.
Fulton Leadership Academy, Georgia’s first single-gender public charter school, is dedicated to increasing achievement in disadvantaged students as a Title I school in East Point, Georgia. The joint programming with AIM is funded by a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Aviation Workforce Development Grant. The FAA awarded Fulton Leadership Academy $500,000 to train students to become aviation maintenance technicians with Aviation Institute of Maintenance.
“We are honored to work with Fulton Leadership Academy to bring awareness of the need for aircraft technicians and the viability of aviation maintenance as a career to their students and to further their training once they complete high school,” said Ben Sitton, Campus Executive Director at AIM.
Fulton’s students are currently enrolled in Choose Aerospace, a 500-hour online curriculum created to meet the rising demand for aviation technical personnel. The program is intended for use in high school classrooms and will transfer to AIM to fulfill the General portion of AIM’s FAA-certificated Aviation Maintenance Technician (AMT) program. AIM’s AMT program typically takes 21 months to complete, but completion of the Choose Aerospace curriculum in high school can shorten the length of time between high school graduation and gainful employment for Fulton students. During the visit, AIM faculty and staff discussed career opportunities, avenues for growth, and the pathway to credentialing within the aviation industry with Fulton students.
