Would you fly a plane built by kids? If it’s these Jersey kids, you might even buy it.

Every Saturday, a bunch of flight-loving friends meet up in the same small hangar at Flying W Airport in Medford. Their passion project is there: a two-seater experimental aircraft they’re building from scratch. All aluminum silver and rivets now, when it’s done it will be a beauty. And it’ll sell for some real money, too.

Building a plane is no small undertaking. It requires precision, great attention, and care. This crew has all that, but there’s something that sets them apart from most others who would take on this task:

Their parents have to drop them off. Most of these plane builders aren’t yet old enough to drive.

Meet the members of Teen Aviation of New Jersey, a free, mentor-led program that fuels young people’s interest in aviation by giving them the hands-on experience of building an actual aircraft.

“I feel like I learn something new every time I’m here,” said Brady Cowden, 16, a homeschool student from Collingswood.

Part of a program with chapters elsewhere in the country, the New Jersey club is the only in this area. Its members are a diverse group of a dozen teens ages 13 to 18. They come from all over the Garden State.

It’s a time investment. The club meets every Saturday for five hours at the Medford airport, filling the hangar with sounds of drills, tools, and teenage banter. But the members say they wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

“My son’s one of the newbies,” said Ravi Verma, 46, a software engineer, whose boy Anay, 14, joined about a month ago and has been passionate about aviation since age 10. He’s already taking flying lessons.

They come from a distance; the family lives in Jersey City. When Anay found the program online, “he said, ‘It’s a commitment, but do you mind driving me?’ I said, ‘Let’s go!’” A freshman in a high school engineering program, “he’s been telling all his classmates about Teen Aviation. ‘You guys should come down.’”

“It’s very fun indeed,” Anay said.

Parker Perez, 17, a junior at Northern Burlington High School, was interested in aviation but he wasn’t sure about giving up his Saturdays until he actually went to the program.

“I was like, I like this, I like this a lot.”

Now a couple years in, the Columbus student is starting to see their plane go from parts to taking real form. When it’s done, the members will get to go for a ride in it.

“It’ll be really cool. Wow. We actually built this thing, and I’m actually getting in the sky,” he said.

The adult mentors in Teen Aviation know all about that kind of joy. Their backgrounds range from commercial or private pilots, engineering, manufacturing, and the military. They all volunteer their time, and the program is funded totally by donations. Even the use of the hangar was donated. Eventually the aircraft the kids are building will be sold to fund the next one, fetching around $150,000.

The goal of the program is to introduce teenagers to career possibilities in STEM and aviation-related fields they may not be aware of or that may have seemed beyond their reach.

Howard Lewis, 70, of Cherry Hill, one of the mentors and an aviation enthusiast since elementary school, said some of the students involved in building the aircraft had only dreamed of flight before joining the program.

“Many of our kids had their first flights through the Young Eagles,” a program that introduces young people to flying, “because the mentors they’re working with while they’re building the airplane made sure they were available the day that they were giving flights,” Lewis, a lighting specialist, said.

The man the mentors call the father of the program is Ted Fox, a longtime Cherry Hill resident, whose lifelong love of flying led him to earn his pilot’s license at age 63. A year before he died in July 2023 at age 86, he became one of the mentors of the first students in Teen Aviation NJ. Retired pilot Joseph Zetkulic, 67, of Jobstown, and his wife Robin, friends of Fox and some other founders, created the organization under a child advocacy nonprofit they already ran, Joy to the Child.

Fox’s longtime friend and flight buddy Alan Mkitarian, 87, of Palmyra, continues to mentor the kids in his friend’s name.

“I’m honored to be a part of it,” said Mkitarian, an avid builder of model planes. “I feel I need to be here for Ted, to see this thing finished. All this was his baby, and it’s matured and grown.”

The students come in at all different experience levels. Some have never worked with tools. Others are already mechanically inclined, but may not have worked as a team.

“We work with them and grow that part of them where they’re not as strong, and it goes well beyond just building an airplane,” said Ethan Lydon, 46, of Lumberton, a field representative with Boeing.

Retired from the Air Force, Lydon said he talks to the students about his life experiences. He challenges them to problem solve.

“I have seen these kids grow and really learn the trade and craft,” said Lydon.

When students first join, they don’t get to work on the plane. Initially, they build a toolbox, as newcomer Divinity Harvey, 16, of Burlington, who one day hopes to be a pilot, was doing on a recent Saturday. That way, they learn about the materials, the tools, and how to follow instructions.

As the students construct their plane — a Van Aircraft RV-12is — their work is monitored by program technical advisor John Panchesine, 74, of Millville, a FAA-certified airframe and powerplant mechanic.

“Their workmanship is excellent,” said Panchesine, a private pilot. “I’ve worked in aviation my whole life. You can’t allow complacency or poor workmanship to get into the air.”

The students learn that. But they’ve had their horizons broadened in other ways, too.

“I wanted to be a pilot when I grew up,” said Michael Lester, 16, of Burlington. He still does, but like a lot of the other students, the Teen Aviation program now has him thinking about engineering as well.

And there is something else. He, like the other aviation students, have gotten to know students they probably never would have met otherwise, some from communities they’ve never been to. On Saturdays, they all have lunch together. They play pool. They’ve become friends, and not just in the hangar.

The other week, Lester, who goes to Burlington Township High School, went to New York City and Asbury Park with homeschooler Brady Cowden.

Katie Baltz, 17, of Mays Landing, already was interested in engineering when she started at Teen Aviation. But wading into a group of strangers was a challenge for her, a shy kid. The program changed that.

“Everyone didn’t know fully what to do, so everyone spoke up. Everyone spoke their mind,” said the Cedar Creek High School senior. “So then I started doing what they did, and I just became more open.”

Katie and several of the students keep in touch outside of the program via text and phone.

“We have a group chat. We hang out,” said Dishita Singh, 16, a student at Moorestown High School.

Of the students, Singh is probably the furthest along in her aviation pursuits. Last December, three days after her sixteenth birthday, she flew her first solo flight. She’s become a squadron commander in her Civil Air Patrol chapter, and Teen Aviation has sparked her interest in possibly pursuing engineering in college.

But what’s been especially valuable, she said, is what she has learned about people and the friendships she has made, despite their varying backgrounds.

“I lived in a bubble for much of my life. I’ve been exposed to a lot of different people here,” said the Moorestown teenager. “It’s definitely worth the time because not all the learning you do is in school. People forget that. They feel like homework and grades are the only things. But there’s so much more you can learn.”