Sneak Peek Inside Chicago’s First Aviation Maintenance School

The Aviation Institute of Maintenance (AIM) is getting ready to open the doors of its largest campus yet, which will become the first FAA certified Part 147 program in the city of Chicago. In anticipation of its Sept. 27, 2021 start date, Aviation Week took a look inside the Chicago campus to find out more about how the school will help grow the MRO workforce pipeline in the area.

Editor’s Note: Chicago does have a history of offering vocational programs that teach aviation maintenance curriculum in high schools and community colleges, including the program at Dunbar Vocational High School on the South Side which was created and run by Cornelius Coffey, the first black man to hold both a pilot’s and a mechanic’s license. The new AIM program will be the only FAA certified Part 147 program in the city as of the publishing of this article.

AIM’s Chicago campus is located in the McKinley Park neighborhood, situated in between Chicago Midway International Airport and Chicago O’Hare International Airport. Joel English, AIM’s executive vice president, says the school chose an urban location instead of a facility near one of the airports as part of efforts to revitalize the neighborhood.

According to AIM, the 137,000 ft.² facility will be the largest A&P school in America.

The facility is AIM’s first new construction campus. The school has previously rented or purchased freestanding buildings for its other 13 campuses located across the U.S.

According to English, the purpose-built facility provided a blank slate for the school’s design. “We were able to create almost all open hangar floor and develop it for the sole purpose of training tomorrow’s aircraft technicians,” says English.

The facility features a 45-ft. hangar door, 28 exterior loading docks and two drive-in doors. It also features tie-down spots outside, which the school will use for engine runs.

Within the hangar are 14 aircraft purchased for the school, including a Learjet, a Cessna 150, two Cessna 310s, an Ercoupe and a Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter. All aircraft were delivered to the campus on trucks and were then reassembled on-site.

According to Lee Mueller, AIM’s Chicago campus executive director, eight of the aircraft were purchased from Northern Michigan University, which closed its Aviation Maintenance Technology program in 2020 and liquidated its assets. AIM also purchased tools, training equipment and supplies from NMU.

In addition to its 14 aircraft, the Chicago campus features a wide variety of engines and mockups for students to train on.

According to Mark Holloway, AIM’s director of aviation education, the campus will follow in the footsteps of many MROs that have gone paperless in recent years. Instead of textbooks, students will receive an electronic device or use their own. Instructors will be able to cast lessons to a screen or to student devices in both the classrooms and the hangar.

English says AIM is expecting its first class in Chicago to be comprised of around 25 students, with that number growing to around 500 by the end of its first two years of operation. The school has the capacity to enroll up to 1,200 students at any given time.

The first group of students will be a mix of native AIM students as well as students from Olive-Harvey College, part of the City Colleges of Chicago. Olive-Harvey launched its first aviation sheet metalworking course in partnership with AAR in late 2018 and has been working to provide pathways to aviation maintenance careers since then.

English says AIM has partnered with Olive-Harvey to provide all airframe and powerplant technical training for its new associate degree in aviation maintenance from its new Chicago campus. Credits from the program will be transferrable to Southern Illinois University, where students can then pursue a bachelor’s degree.

In addition to its partnership with Olive-Harvey College, AIM will be working with several aviation industry partners at its Chicago campus. It is partnered with AAR through its EAGLE Pathway Program and will be working with Launch Technical Workforce Solutions—based in Chicago suburb Oak Brook, Illinois—to find ways to reach underrepresented populations in aviation maintenance such as veterans, minorities and women.

The Chicago campus is also a major part of AIM’s partnership with United Airlines, which is headquartered in the city. It created a program with the airline in 2017 called United With AIM that enabled United employees to receive a 10% discount or grant toward tuition at AIM. “At the time we dedicated not only that we would give a tuition grant to United employees, but that we would bring new campuses to their facilities,” says English.

As part of these efforts, AIM opened a new campus last year in Teterboro, New Jersey to help United fill workforce pipeline at its New York/Newark hub and English says the Chicago campus will help the airline fulfill its workforce needs at O’Hare.

According to Garrett West, regional director, technical operations at United Airlines, Chicago is one of the cities where the airline is experiencing the greatest need for skilled technicians. West says upwards of 60 technicians based at O’Hare retired during the pandemic, so the airline is now looking to hire for positions that have not been filled internally.