Flight Training Education Is The Key To Your Professional Aviation Career

Becoming a pilot is a journey that only a handful of people are able to do. Flying an airplane requires a very high level of skills and perseverance. It takes years to acquire the skills necessary to fly commercial jets. Furthermore, a pilot is always working on his or her skills; there is always room for improvement.
Few of the major airlines require a college degree for employment, but in the past several years, more than 95 percent of the pilots hired have at least a four-year college degree. If you want an airline job, you stand a better chance if you are among the 95 percent with a degree than the 5 percent without one.

Flight Training Knowledge Base

Before you can even think of flying you need to have a basic knowledge of the theory of flying. The partial list of studies include:

• Theory of Flight
• Weather and Meteorology
• Aircraft Systems
• Regulations and Air Traffic Control

Each of these subjects require full understanding and in-depth knowledge. Without such understanding, the pilot cannot operate safely. Where do get the proper flight training education to become a professional pilot? It all starts with flight school.

What Aviation College and Flight Schools Can Teach You

We have outlined very important points from Scott Spangler‘s great article about the importance of Aviaion colleges and the experience you get while you do your flight training.

Professional pilots today are “flight managers” who must intimately understand the workings of their computerized and fly-by-wire stick and rudder, and who must work with and depend on a crew of professionals that goes far beyond those in the cockpit.

These are the essential skills students learn and practice in today’s collegiate aviation programs, but the value of a college education goes beyond these aviation-specific skills. Typically, your first two years of college will be devoted to “general education” classes. While they seemingly have no direct correlation with aviation, they do, and additionally, they’ll make you a well-rounded individual.

Math, physics, and computer-science classes help you understand your career’s technical aspects. English makes you a better oral and written communicator. Sociology and psychology give you a better understanding of human nature. History and the humanities give you insight and appreciation for man’s development, achievements, and blunders. Economics makes clear the forces that will act upon your career.

When people think of aviation, they naturally think of pilots. But pilots are just one cog in the vast human machine that makes aviation work. If it were not for aeronautical and electrical engineers, airframe and powerplant (A&P) and avionics technicians, meteorologists, air traffic controllers, aviation managers at all levels, and a host of others, we wouldn’t need pilots (and the others wouldn’t be needed if there were no pilots). These are all viable, rewarding aviation careers, careers for which you can become educated at many colleges and universities.
Those aiming for the cockpit should never forget that a failed medical (or a failed airline) can terminate a flying career without notice. This is another reason pilots should know more than just how to fly. If you don’t have a degree, your career options are limited. But if you’ve been educated as a manager, engineer, or technician, you have career alternatives that will enable you to survive professionally and, perhaps, maintain your aviation “connection.”

Flight College Connections

College is one of the best places to make your aviation connection because it provides the education and contacts you’ll need to succeed. Guidance counselors will help tailor your educational program to meet your career goals. They will explain what’s needed when, and why, and they’ll even help you refine your objectives and offer alternatives if, for some reason, you cannot attain the original goal.
This guidance continues throughout your educational career. As you near graduation, the school’s job placement service will work with you to help you find that first aviation position (and many schools offer placement assistance to graduates throughout their professional careers).
Many schools also have cooperative agreements with different companies in which you go to school for a semester (usually 16 weeks) and work in your chosen career field for the next semester. Other schools have internship programs, where you work for a company, such as United Airlines, which has an internship program with more than 15 colleges.

During their senior year, United interns may be based at a domicile, flight operations headquarters at Chicago, or at United’s Colorado training center. Interns are assigned management tasks based on an accepted curriculum. Interns don’t do any flying, but they have access to United’s simulators.

If interns are working toward a piloting career, United guarantees them an interview once they meet United’s minimum requirements “because they are a known entity,” says a United official. Accepting around 20 interns per semester year-round, United has hired almost 100 as second officers since the program began in the spring of 1986.

Aviator College of Aeronautical Science & Technology provides the most cost effective flight training programs and a two year Aviation degree in Aeronautical Science. The College has a state of the art 37,000 square foot facility, featuring a CRJ Level 5 Flight Training Device (Simulator). College student’s receive a minimum of 565 flight training hours in the aviation degree program. Graduates will have the opportunity to stay on as a flight training instructor. Contact Aviator college today to schedule a visit and begin your flight training education.

Distributed by Viestly