Boeing Article
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 6:42 pm
Flight schools accelerate training to meet growing demand for pilots
Embry-Riddle and a new academy in Sanford are ramping up training to fill an impending pilot shortage.
Orlando Sentinel 01/02/2008
Author: Robert Perez
(Copyright 2007 by The Orlando Sentinel)
SANFORD - Delta Connection Academy's new 27,000-square-foot hangar with its high-tech training center is likely to be a busy place for the foreseeable future.
The facility, which opened last month at the Orlando Sanford International Airport, will be the academy's heart of pilot training during the next few years, a time that promises to be one of the busiest in decades for flight schools.
The aviation industry is facing a crisis, in which demand for pilots could soon outstrip supply. More than 30,000 pilots will reach mandatory retirement age in the next 10 years. Many of those are Vietnam-era veterans trained to fly by the military.
At the same time, aviation markets in China and India are rapidly expanding, and the domestic airline industry, which has finally rebounded after 9-11, is hungry for new pilots.
Aviation-industry officials predict the need for as many as 18,000 new pilots annually through 2024. That is likely to strain the existing network of flight schools and aeronautical universities that prepare the next generation of pilots.
There are 1,765 student pilots in Central Florida, according to Federal Aviation Administration records. The lion's share of them are enrolled at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. Nationally, there are nearly 85,000 student pilots, including more than 5,000 foreign students.
Embry-Riddle has graduated an average of 280 pilots from its aeronautical-science program annually since 1998. Delta Connection produces about 150 pilots a year.
Delta Connection is banking on a training program that stresses technology to train and graduate in as little as nine months pilots who are ready to take the controls of regional jets with little additional training.
"What we try to do is use emerging technology to produce experienced and qualified pilots," said John McGann, Delta Connection's business development director.
That means state-of-the-art simulators that duplicate the in-cockpit environment of the Cirrus SR20, the twin-engine prop training planes parked on the flight line. The simulators allow students to train to the limits of the aircraft without having to be airborne.
"We can do things in the simulator that you wouldn't want to try in an airplane," McGann said.
The Delta Connection curriculum includes training for recovering out-of-control aircraft, for managing a crew, and for dealing with hypoxia -- lack of oxygen to the body at high altitude.
Students then get additional training in a simulator that mimics the smaller jets popular with regional carriers such as ASA, ComAir and American Eagle.
Just an hour north of Delta Connection Academy, Embry-Riddle is taking a similar approach for its students, even though the school offers full four-year degrees.
The demand for pilots has accelerated the flight training portion of the school's curriculum by about a year, said Frank Ayers, chairman of Embry-Riddle's flight department.
Like Delta Connection, Embry-Riddle offers state-of-the-art simulators that provide students in-cockpit environments. The twin-engine Diamond DA42 aircraft used for flight training was selected for its jetlike handling, Ayers said.
The accelerated training gives upperclassmen the opportunity to work as flight instructors at the university while they finish their degrees. It also provides the university with a pool of instructors less likely to be lured away by airlines desperate for pilots.
Despite that, the number of recruiting classes for instructors has jumped from about three a year to more than a dozen, Ayers said. The university pays $3,500 bonuses to flight instructors who agree to remain a year. Still, about half of the school's 165 instructors are juniors and seniors at the university, Ayers said.
Tim Brady, dean of the university's college of aviation, said cooperation between the airlines and the school is crucial as the demand for pilots increases. That's why Embry-Riddle will host a summit in March to discuss the effects of the pilot shortage on the industry.
"We need to have a frank discussion about how we provide them the pilots they need while maintaining our instructors rather than them taking all the seed corn," he said.
One industry observer said such cooperation seems unlikely. Beyond the desire of new pilots to get their careers moving, the airlines soon will become desperate for pilots, said Kit Darby, president and publisher of AIR Inc., an aviation career-information publisher.
"You are going to start seeing airlines paying for some part of a pilot's initial training and may get to where the airline pays for all their training," he said. "The last time that happened was in the 1960s."
Embry-Riddle and a new academy in Sanford are ramping up training to fill an impending pilot shortage.
Orlando Sentinel 01/02/2008
Author: Robert Perez
(Copyright 2007 by The Orlando Sentinel)
SANFORD - Delta Connection Academy's new 27,000-square-foot hangar with its high-tech training center is likely to be a busy place for the foreseeable future.
The facility, which opened last month at the Orlando Sanford International Airport, will be the academy's heart of pilot training during the next few years, a time that promises to be one of the busiest in decades for flight schools.
The aviation industry is facing a crisis, in which demand for pilots could soon outstrip supply. More than 30,000 pilots will reach mandatory retirement age in the next 10 years. Many of those are Vietnam-era veterans trained to fly by the military.
At the same time, aviation markets in China and India are rapidly expanding, and the domestic airline industry, which has finally rebounded after 9-11, is hungry for new pilots.
Aviation-industry officials predict the need for as many as 18,000 new pilots annually through 2024. That is likely to strain the existing network of flight schools and aeronautical universities that prepare the next generation of pilots.
There are 1,765 student pilots in Central Florida, according to Federal Aviation Administration records. The lion's share of them are enrolled at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. Nationally, there are nearly 85,000 student pilots, including more than 5,000 foreign students.
Embry-Riddle has graduated an average of 280 pilots from its aeronautical-science program annually since 1998. Delta Connection produces about 150 pilots a year.
Delta Connection is banking on a training program that stresses technology to train and graduate in as little as nine months pilots who are ready to take the controls of regional jets with little additional training.
"What we try to do is use emerging technology to produce experienced and qualified pilots," said John McGann, Delta Connection's business development director.
That means state-of-the-art simulators that duplicate the in-cockpit environment of the Cirrus SR20, the twin-engine prop training planes parked on the flight line. The simulators allow students to train to the limits of the aircraft without having to be airborne.
"We can do things in the simulator that you wouldn't want to try in an airplane," McGann said.
The Delta Connection curriculum includes training for recovering out-of-control aircraft, for managing a crew, and for dealing with hypoxia -- lack of oxygen to the body at high altitude.
Students then get additional training in a simulator that mimics the smaller jets popular with regional carriers such as ASA, ComAir and American Eagle.
Just an hour north of Delta Connection Academy, Embry-Riddle is taking a similar approach for its students, even though the school offers full four-year degrees.
The demand for pilots has accelerated the flight training portion of the school's curriculum by about a year, said Frank Ayers, chairman of Embry-Riddle's flight department.
Like Delta Connection, Embry-Riddle offers state-of-the-art simulators that provide students in-cockpit environments. The twin-engine Diamond DA42 aircraft used for flight training was selected for its jetlike handling, Ayers said.
The accelerated training gives upperclassmen the opportunity to work as flight instructors at the university while they finish their degrees. It also provides the university with a pool of instructors less likely to be lured away by airlines desperate for pilots.
Despite that, the number of recruiting classes for instructors has jumped from about three a year to more than a dozen, Ayers said. The university pays $3,500 bonuses to flight instructors who agree to remain a year. Still, about half of the school's 165 instructors are juniors and seniors at the university, Ayers said.
Tim Brady, dean of the university's college of aviation, said cooperation between the airlines and the school is crucial as the demand for pilots increases. That's why Embry-Riddle will host a summit in March to discuss the effects of the pilot shortage on the industry.
"We need to have a frank discussion about how we provide them the pilots they need while maintaining our instructors rather than them taking all the seed corn," he said.
One industry observer said such cooperation seems unlikely. Beyond the desire of new pilots to get their careers moving, the airlines soon will become desperate for pilots, said Kit Darby, president and publisher of AIR Inc., an aviation career-information publisher.
"You are going to start seeing airlines paying for some part of a pilot's initial training and may get to where the airline pays for all their training," he said. "The last time that happened was in the 1960s."
