PRIEST RIVER­ — Wearing their flight crew colors, the fifth-grade students walked side by side across the gymnasium to ensure the flight deck was clear of debris.

“We are simulating an aircraft carrier, which is the reason for all the different colors,” said Priest River Elementary teacher Chris Naccarato. “On an aircraft carrier, each shirt color represents a different job that they do.”

Purple shirts on an aircraft carrier, for example, take care of the fuel for the planes. Since drones are battery powered, the PRE students wearing the purple shirts made sure the batteries were charged and replaced as needed.

Once it was determined the flight deck was clear, the students who were the pilots — donning black uniforms — were challenged with flying a drone across the gym and landing on pad placed on one of the basketball hoops.

“It ended up being a lot harder than I thought it would be, because you get that drone out in front of you about 10 or 15 feet, you really lose perspective fast,” Naccarato said. “I was really pleased that couple of them landed.”

Shortly after Naccarato started teaching at PRE in 1992, he started NACA — National Astronaut in the Classroom Association. He has been holding aeronautical events each year since, and invites astronauts to join them. Because he lives in Sandpoint, former NASA astronaut and naval aviator John Phillips has been to many of Naccarato’s events over the years. As such, he was there for the Dec. 13 event.

Each year, Naccarato teaches aviation studies for the first semester, and space flight in the second half of the year, hosting a big event to go with each. The space flight studies culminate in a space day event complete with the launching of several rockets. For the fall event, however, Naccarato said he used to use paper airplanes for the aviation portion.

This was the second year the drone event took the place of the paper airplanes, though Naccarato said he still uses them for some of the training.

“I thought it was a lot smoother this year, because I had a year of doing it before,” Naccarato said. “So it just seemed to really flow better this year.”

Naccarato said he brought back some of last year’s student pilots as well as instructor pilots as well.

In addition, at the U.S. Naval Academy, the first-year plebes are challenged with climbing a greased up, 21-foot tall Herndon Monument to replace a plebe’s hat at the top with an officer’s cap, signaling the official end of the plebe year.

To simulate this event and how the class started with paper airplanes and ended with the drones, a paper airplane was placed on the edge of the basketball hoop, and was successfully knocked down by one of the pilots as they navigated their drone around the hoop.

Because Phillips was a graduate of the Naval Academy and witnessed the plebe ceremony, Naccarato said it was great to have him attend this particular event.

To get the drone program started last year, Naccarato was awarded a “Ready, Set, Drones!” grant by the Idaho STEM Action Center, which supplied $2,575 for the drone package, as well as funds for training.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.