North Augusta High offers new flight simulator to students

NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - The sky is the limit for North Augusta high schoolers.

This year, the school started offering an aviation course. The goal is to allow students to explore different jobs in that field.

Travis Spears’ students are learning to fly, and now they can in the virtual skiy.

“It was really a community effort to really help out the students,” he said.

The community raised more than $5,000 to get it, and now students have a new flight simulator to train on.

Spears says it’s the real deal.

“It’s all brand new. It’s pretty state-of-the-art. I’ve been flying for 20 years, and when I got in it, it was pretty realistic.

Now, his students are getting to see firsthand

“Go little power. You landed in the neighborhood,” said Spears.

We joined in to see what the action was about. The erratic flying put our passengers in danger, and we landed hard.

“You broke the engine,” said Spears.

It goes to show it takes practice.

“It’ll give them a lot of real-world experience without having to put them in a real plane,” he said.

And while the plane might not be real, for these students, the lessons are.

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