Flight Training - September/October 2022 - 36

THE RECENT BOOM IN AIRLINE
HIRING IS GREAT FOR EVERYONE
IN OUR INDUSTRY. WELL,
ALMOST EVERYONE.
For some
aviation degree programs, a record number
of applicants on one side and a trickle of
airplanes and instructors coupled with a lack
of facilities on the other threatens to back
up efficient training pipelines that students
expect and the industry needs.
As airline hiring ebbs and flows, so does
enrollment at aviation universities. It's hard
to justify spending more than $100,000 on
education and training when the known payoff
after graduation is $20 an hour in the right
seat of a Cessna 172. Today, job prospects are
stronger than they have been in decades,
making an aviation degree a good investment.
And that's not universally great news for colleges
and universities that must balance the
desire to take as many applicants as possible
with the pressures of effectively training
their students.
To deal with these competing goals,
schools are employing a variety of methods,
including technology, scheduling, opening or
expanding facilities, and more.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
in Daytona Beach, Florida, is one of the
largest aviation training programs in the
country, and enrollment has never been
stronger, according to Ken Byrnes, the
chairman of the flight department. It can
make planning especially challenging. Most
schools use historical norms to target how
many acceptance offers to make, knowing
roughly what percentage of students who
receive an offer will show up on campus.
" Normal enrollment numbers aren't holding
true, " he said. The school's fall 2021 enrollment
was beyond its airplane and airport
resources, so it started to look for ways to
ease the strain and keep students flying at
the promised rate. The school found it in
simulation and virtual reality (VR).
" We know that simulation works, " Byrnes
said. Staff have conducted numerous studies
going back decades that show that students
progress just as fast, and often faster, when
using simulation. But Embry-Riddle already
used it extensively in the private pilot
training course, so how to gain even further
efficiencies? They turned to virtual reality.
" We had dabbled in VR, " he said. " But we
jumped in with both feet last summer. "
36
FLIGHT TRAINING SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022
Every new freshman who begins at
Embry-Riddle in Daytona spends four weeks
in the VR and simulation labs, effectively
learning to fly on the ground before ever
seeing an airplane. " They do every maneuver,
ATC call, checklist, and the preflight. Now
when they go to the airplane there's nothing
they haven't seen in regards to maneuvers,
procedures, and radio calls, " Byrnes said.
VR has filled a technology gap that simulation
couldn't handle. While sims are great
for maneuvers, they are generally poor for
things like the preflight.
When students and their families are
paying tens of thousands of dollars for training,
there's a naturally high expectation that
training will progress as fast as the student is
able. Byrnes said he's tried to be as transparent
as possible with parents, and the rolling
four-week start has given everyone a firm
expectation of when to begin training. So, a
new freshman may not start flying the last
week of August, as they would like, but they
may start in the VR lab in October, knowing
they will progress immediately to the airplane
afterward if they put in the work.
More important, Byrnes said students
are saving money because use of the lab is
already included in tuition costs, while flight
costs are billed separately. Although it's not
a perfect measurement, he estimates that
the training time to solo in the airplane was
down by 30 percent last year, saving students
more money and freeing up airplane and
instructor time.
Not every school has the resources or
experience in simulation to quickly increase
efficiency. Middle Tennessee State University
in Murfreesboro is charged with providing
a quality education to a broad range of students
across the state. That can put extreme
pressure on the aviation program, which
must work with state resources, according to
Michael Gref, the program's chief instructor.
MTSU's big enrollment jump was between
2017 and 2020 when the professional pilot
program more than doubled in size. The
fall 2020 enrollment brought the program
to 900 students.
Because nearly 98 percent of the school's
instructors are former graduates, the school
benefited when airline hiring stalled during
the pandemic. That allowed the school to
keep CFIs and train more, putting MTSU in a
good position today. Gref said MTSU has had
around 105 instructors on staff for two years.
The airplane market and supply chain
have provided challenges, however. The
school flies Diamond DA40s, and factory
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