How an aviation elective in high school led this Islander to the Snowbirds

Avery Arsenault took an aviation elective at Three Oaks Senior High School in Summerside, P.E.I., knowing nothing about planes and has since built a career fixing them.

She took the course in Grade 10 and by Grade 12 she had joined the Canadian Armed Forces as an aviation systems technician.

Fast forward to present day, and she's a corporal in the 431 Air Demonstration Squadron —popularly known as the Canadian Forces Snowbirds— in the same role.

"I thought it would be cool just to do a hands-on course but it's been a lot more than that. It has been my whole adult life," Arsenault said.

I have a poster in one of my classes that says, 'The harder I work, the luckier I get,' and Avery is a testament to that.— Donnie Gallant, Three Oaks aviation instructor

"It's very nice because it is different every day," Arsenault said about her new gig. "I get to travel, which is really exciting. It's a really unique opportunity."  

Her day-to-day work entails doing the maintenance and servicing planes. In between Snowbirds' shows, she flies with pilots to make sure their jet is safe. 

"So servicing would be like refuelling oxygen or replenishing pre- and post-flight checks and filling smoke tanks and cleaning the jets," Arsenault said.

"On the maintenance side it's removing and installing engines, working on the flight controls, so ailerons and flaps, some fuel systems, hydraulic systems and some basic electronics."

The aviation course in high school gave her an edge during her training at the Canadian Forces School of Aerospace Technology and Engineering, Arsenault said.

"It just felt like I was redoing that high school course for the most part, but a bit more in depth," she said. "I've never met anyone else in the forces that has ever gotten [an] opportunity like that in high school."

'Couldn't be prouder of her'

Donnie Gallant, who teaches the aviation course at Three Oaks, has been running the elective for 14 years. 

"I kind of made it more of an introductory thing where students didn't really [need] any background at all," Gallant told CBC's Mitch Cormier during an interview on Island Morning.

It's the perfect elective, you get to learn about things you don't normally learn about.— Avery Arsenault

Arsenault came into his course "very inquisitive," and thrived, Gallant said. 

"She had a great work ethic, very confident and she was just one of those students [that] could work well by herself or work with somebody else. She just excelled in whatever situation she was put in."

He couldn't be any prouder of his former student.

"It's such a big accomplishment," he said. "I have a poster in one of my classes that says, 'The harder I work, the luckier I get,' and Avery is a testament to that."

Gallant said he couldn't teach the aviation course this year because not enough students signed up.

Arsenault is encouraging students to take the course.

"It's extremely unique and extremely interesting," she said.

"It's the perfect elective, you get to learn about things you don't normally learn about."