Bombardier Wing
When Art Class Builds a Plane Wing
This year, Pinellas Park High School's First Responder program asked us to do something we'd never done before: build a life-size Bombardier CRJ 900 airplane wing for their simulated crash site.
So we did.
Students learned to read real technical schematics and engineering drawings, calculated proportions, and engineered a lightweight skeleton from XPS foam. We framed it in cardboard, skinned it, paper-mached the whole surface, and finished it in silver paint.
The result was a full-size airplane wing — built entirely by high school students — that anchored a disaster simulation complete with fire engines, ambulances, and a medical helicopter landing on our field.
This is what happens when art class meets the real world. Students didn't just make something that looked impressive. They solved structural problems, collaborated across the whole build, and watched their work hold up under pressure — literally on the runway of someone else's learning.
That's the power of a large-scale collaborative project: it asks more of students, and students always rise to meet it.
