Difficult though it may be for those in the aerospace industry to comprehend it, there is a real problem generating sufficient interest in aviation careers to meet the demand for highly skilled jobs like engineers, pilots and air traffic controllers.
These professions demand extensive, high-level academic and practical training. Pilot training in particular requires a huge upfront financial investment.
Once the students have gained their qualifications there is plenty of competition for their skills – newly qualified aeronautical engineers with the right degree, for example, can easily be poached by other industries.
A year ago, when launching a new training centre near London Gatwick airport, Boeing Flight Services observed that the industry needs to deploy “innovative solutions focused on educational outreach and career pipeline programmes to inspire the next generation of pilots, technicians, and cabin crew”.
Boeing has worked on new training technologies, devices and methods to be able to accommodate “a wide range of learning styles”. It adds: “The growing diversity of aviation personnel will also require instructors to have cross-cultural and cross-generational skills to engage tomorrow's workforce.”
Boeing makes clear that the digital sophistication of new aircraft and equipment poses a training challenge, but the same technology can also provide new learning and teaching solutions.
The manufacturer argues that the complexity of the subject matter and the new learning styles of today’s generation demand a new teaching approach, and it has been working steadily on designing a new approach.
“Our scenario-based approach for ‘active learning’ was proven almost three years ago on our 747-8 EASA conversion [type rating] course, which previously did not exist,” Boeing says. “The lessons we learned from the 747-8 courseware development were refined for expanded use on the 737 MAX Type rating courses.”
On a worldwide basis, Boeing is one of the dream employers for those who want an aviation or aerospace career, and for that reason it probably has less trouble than other employers recruiting well-qualified staff.
So the fact that it admits it has to work on a strategy for attracting the right people, whether for itself or for its customers, suggests it must be a difficult task for a small, specialist component supplier to the aircraft manufacturing industry to attract young engineers or suitably qualified sales people.
ADVICE HARD TO FIND
If a young person today has an interest in an aviation career, and enters a question into one of the online search engines asking where to start looking for one, there are generic sites out there that provide some answers.
The same sort of online search will yield plenty of offers from fight training organisations and some technical colleges, but inspiration, independent advice and guidance is more difficult to find.
Because of the amount of learning and time involved, cost is a serious factor for students, but advice on finance, or on linking up with organisations that provide grants, or how to connect specialist technical training to apprenticeships, degrees or student loans, and how to get tax relief – is harder to come by.
Enter Simon Witts, founder of Aviation Skills Partnership (ASP). Responsible a decade ago for setting up and running the Flybe Training Academy at Exeter airport, Witts noticed at that time there was poor coordination between all the UK’s education and training institutions and the aviation industry.
He believed that government education departments, schools, colleges, flight training organisations, universities and the end users – manufacturers, airlines, general aviation and the military – could serve each other’s needs much better than they were doing.
Witts set about a root-and-branch analysis of the disparate elements, intending to bring the enablers together and helping them act more like a system, thus making it easier and more attractive for those who wanted a career in aviation to prepare for it.
His vision was of a system that would motivate youngsters from the time they first conceived their interest in aviation at school and maintain that enthusiasm all the way through education and training into their career.
In January at the Palace of Westminster, Witts addressed an invited audience of people with an interest in improving the quality and availability of technical skills related to aviation, including members of parliament, business leaders, educators, trainers and academics.
He explained: “People have always had a fascination with aviation, but we rarely see that interest and excitement translating into careers.
“There is a whole pool of talent out there, but the onus is on us to make our industry accessible to the right people by providing the right infrastructure at a local, regional, national and international level.”
ASP sets out to provide career training pathways not just for engineers, pilots and air traffic controllers, but for potential airport operations executives, airline operations and crewing staff, cabin crew and airport ground handling management.
TRAIN WHILE STUDYING
An example of someone who benefited from ASP coordination and advice is Anna McGrady, now a first officer with EasyJet.
In 2013 she set out from school intending to do a science degree and then train as an airline pilot, but through meeting Witts while investigating a flying training course at what was then CTC Aviation (now L3 Commercial Aviation Solutions) she learned that she could combine study for a BSc degree in Professional Aviation Pilot Practice with CTC’s flying training.
She and fellow student pilot contemporary Steven Hadley – also focused on the same objective – were the first two students to enrol on the new PAPP BSc course. They graduated in 2017.
By that time, they had been working on the line with EasyJet for two years. The airline provided them with mentoring for their degree work, which, as they describe it, included reflective writing on all aspects of their aviating job, including threat and error management.
On the student engineer front, Tom Emms set out into aviation from school by doing a Level 3 City and Guilds course in aircraft engineering at Newcastle College.
Now, he is now doing a BSc degree in Aircraft Engineering accredited by Kingston University, but he is carrying it out at KLM UK Engineering, based at the new ASP International Aviation Academy, Norwich (IAA-N).
Witts’ initiatives in bringing together educational institutions, central and local government and industry will result in the creation of a series of international aviation academies throughout the country.
The first such unit to go live is the IAA-N at Norwich airport, and it will quickly be followed by others throughout the UK.
IAA-N operates in partnership with Norwich County Council, the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership, KLM UK Engineering, City College Norwich and the University of East Anglia.
The next ASP academy – Aaron Aviation Academy – has a strong connection to the Royal Air Force’s needs for suitably skilled and motivated potential recruits. It will be up and running at RAF Syerston in 2019 as a joint venture between the RAF Air Cadets and ASP.
ASP’s Whittle Engineering Academy will also be set up at the RAF’s centre of engineering excellence at RAF Cosford, while Scotland will soon see the International Aviation Academy, Dundee, based at the city’s airport.
Witts describes the latter as “a joint venture with Tayside Aviation, in association with Dundee City Council”. It is planned, he explains, to be a “unique collaboration of employers, trainers, educators, funding bodies, government, industry and, of course, students and delegates”.
IAA-D will, like all the academies, provide hands-on training for students in aviation specialisations.
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Source: FlightGlobal.com
