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Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Henderson State University launches aviation courses for non-degree-seeking pilots
ARKADELPHIA, Ark. — A change made last week at Henderson State University is ensuring more people are 'Reddie' to fly. The aviation flight training program, turning into the Arkansas Aviation Academy, is more than a name change. It expands flight education beyond those enrolled at the school. New Arkansas law creates incentives for alternative aviation fuel Three courses are now open to non-degree students. They include a commercial multi-engine add-on course, a tailwheel course, and a Certified Flight Instructor spin-training course. They are available only to people who already have a commercial pilot certificate. Shannon Clardy, Henderson State University Dean of the College of Aviation, Science, and Nursing, said the 16-plane fleet allows more room for advanced training. 'That's what we're focused on right now. As our fleet capacity grows, then our offerings will also grow,' Clardy said. It also fills a hiring need in the aviation industry. 'That is all experience that pilots will need to move out into industry, whether they are flying charter airplanes, flying freight, or flying passengers,' Clardy explained. United Airlines wants to turn algae into jet fuel Taylor Scalzi went from student to instructor. She completed the commercial multi-engine add-on courses last week. 'It really broadens my horizons of where I can go, and what I can do,' Scalzi explained. Each of the three initial courses can be completed in less than a week. Accommodations will be available on campus for participating pilots during their week-long training. Scalzi said she is excited to see who the academy brings in. 'It is a very dynamic group. It could be anybody from 18 years old to in their 50s. It doesn't matter,' Scalzi said. The creation of an aviation advisory board is underway, and the academy is working on alumni connections, along with pursuing potential partnerships with airlines, which could help with landing a job. Chad Cocroft is a junior HSU aviation major. He said the course is his 'next step' in achieving his dream of becoming a career pilot. 'I enjoy it. I want to do it for the rest of my life,' Cocroft said. University of Central Arkansas celebrates groundbreaking of Aviation Academy hangar Henderson's long-established professional pilot bachelor's degree program is the only public university program of its kind in the state. For additional information, visit or call (870) 230-5585 to schedule training. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Midair collision draws attention to military helicopter training and previous accidents
To learn to fly a military helicopter is to take a master class in multitasking. You need both hands and both feet to control the aircraft while keeping a close eye on the horizon and your altitude. If it's nighttime and you're flying low, you may be scanning the ground for familiar landmarks using night-vision goggles while also checking GPS instruments. 'You have six to seven radios to mess with,' said retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Darin Gaub, who flew Black Hawk helicopters for 22 years. 'You're using everything. And by the way, you're also supposed to fly the aircraft, which is why most military aircraft are crewed by a minimum of two pilots.' The training for U.S. military helicopter pilots is getting heightened attention in the wake of Wednesday night's fatal midair collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and a passenger jet in the skies above Washington. The accident follows a dozen fatal crashes during Army Black Hawk training missions since January 2014 that have claimed the lives of 47 service members. But former military helicopter pilots and experts stood by the nation's rigorous military training Thursday, insisting that it's the world's best. 'Once you get it down and get proficient at it, it's amazing what you can do in it,' said Mark Miller, an associate professor at the College of Aviation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University on its Honolulu campus, and a former Marine helicopter pilot. 'But it's all about training where you really become one with the helicopter.' Intense training in the classroom and sky The education includes intense classroom training about aerodynamics, aircraft systems and the many things that can go wrong, Miller said. 'There are real idiosyncrasies on just landing the helicopter," he said. 'You can actually flip over a helicopter really easily if you don't know what you're doing. But you become very well-versed in that stuff. And then you learn as you go. And you can actually see these things happen and know what to do.' Pilots are trained to fly visually by looking out of the windows and to fly using their instruments in bad weather and at night. The instruments can include an attitude indicator that informs the pilot of the helicopter's orientation in relation to the horizon as well GPS instruments and night vision goggles. 'You get that instrument scan down right away, sometimes painfully so,' Miller said of the training. 'It's not that easy. And then you get it to the point where you're proficient at it. And at night, you use those instruments all the time.' Challenges remain, Miller said. Artificial light on the ground potentially can be blinding when viewed through night vision goggles. Bodies of water can present visual illusions, depending on the lighting and other factors. Nickolas Macchiarella, an aeronautical science professor at Embry-Riddle in Daytona, Florida, said helicopter pilots at night also rely on 'pilotage,' which is using identifiable locations on the ground, such as the side of a building or a piece of shoreline jutting into a river. This is particularly important when flying low and near restricted airspace, Macchiarella said. GPS can tell you where you are, but pilotage can tell you where you'll be in five seconds. 'If the helicopter is 100 feet above the ground and traveling at 120 knots, the pilot has to project forward in time where they'll be in like 10 seconds,' he said. 'A few seconds can make the difference in being in the proper airspace and being wrong.' Challenges of flying near Ronald Reagan National Airport Pilots operating around Reagan National Airport face unique challenges and must have a 'heightened level of awareness' when navigating the area, said Clint Balog, an associate professor at Embry-Riddle. The Washington-area airport, known to pilots by its abbreviation DCA, is relatively small and doused in light pollution from the surrounding metropolitan area, said Balog, who has flown dozens of corporate flights in and out of the airport. 'In DCA, whenever I've flown in there, I found that the light pollution there is among the worst I've flown into," he said. It's always pretty bad, especially early at night.' Balog said pilots have to be precise, especially when landing, because that light can distort the surroundings. He said other cities also have light pollution but the compactness of Reagan Airport intensifies the potential confusion. 'All the lighting starts to look the same,' he said. Gaub, the retired Black Hawk pilot, said there have been thousands of military helicopter flights over many years in that particularly dense airspace. 'And this is one that didn't go right out of all those thousands,' he said. 'So it's a testimony to the great procedures that are there, to the pilots that train there and how they operate on a daily basis. It's basically a highly choreographed dance with very little room for maneuver.' Army concerns over helicopter crashes Army leaders sounded the alarm over a rash of helicopter crashes last year, and in April they ordered extra measures including added training. In a briefing with Pentagon reporters after the crash on Thursday, Army aviation chief of staff Jonathan Koziol said there was 'a spike in incidents' last year that prompted the Army to do a safety stand-down, in which units pause flight operations to evaluate safety procedures 'to not allow these types of incidents to happen,' Koziol said. At the time of the stand-down, there were about a dozen Army helicopter accidents that caused 14 deaths in a six-month period, about twice the rate of the previous 10 years, according to Army officials. The Black Hawk helicopter involved in Wednesday's crash is one of many helicopter types used by the military. Maj. Gen. Walter Rugen, director of Army aviation, told reporters last year that 'spatial disorientation' was a trend in the spike in accidents. Rugen said training must reinforce that pilots know 'where you are and where your aircraft is with respect to the ground.' Twelve crashes of the Army Black Hawk helicopter since 2014 have killed 47 service members, according to data provided by the military. One of the crashes was a nighttime midair collision of two Black Hawk helicopters near Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in 2023 that killed nine service members. The pilots were wearing night vision goggles during the training exercise, army officials said. The most recent crash was on Nov. 10, 2023, when five Army soldiers were killed during aerial refueling training in the Mediterranean Sea. ___ Associated Press journalists Tara Copp and Kevin Vineys contributed to this report. 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Associated Press
30-01-2025
- General
- Associated Press
Mid-air collision draws attention to military helicopter training, previous accidents
To learn to fly a military helicopter is to take a master class in multitasking. You need both hands and both feet to control the aircraft while keeping a close eye on the horizon and your altitude. If it's nighttime and you're flying low, you may be scanning the ground for familiar landmarks using night-vision goggles while also checking GPS instruments. 'You have six to seven radios to mess with,' said retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Darin Gaub, who flew Black Hawk helicopters for 22 years. 'You're using everything. And by the way, you're also supposed to fly the aircraft, which is why most military aircraft are crewed by a minimum of two pilots.' The training for U.S. military helicopter pilots is getting heightened attention in the wake of Wednesday night's fatal mid-air collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and a passenger jet in the skies above Washington. The accident follows a dozen fatal crashes during Army Black Hawk training missions since January 2014 that have claimed the lives of 47 service members. But former military helicopter pilots and experts stood by the nation's rigorous military training Thursday, insisting that it's the world's best. Intense training in the classroom and sky The education includes intense classroom training about aerodynamics, aircraft systems and the many things that can go wrong, said Mark Miller, an associate professor at the College of Aviation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University on its Honolulu campus, and a former Marine helicopter pilot. 'There are real idiosyncrasies on just landing the helicopter,' he said. 'You can actually flip over a helicopter really easily if you don't know what you're doing. But you become very well-versed in that stuff. And then you learn as you go. And you can actually see these things happen and know what to do.' Pilots are trained to fly visually by looking out of the windows and to fly using their instruments in bad weather and at night. The instruments can include an attitude indicator that informs the pilot of the helicopter's orientation in relation to the horizon as well GPS instruments and night vision goggles. 'You get that instrument scan down right away, sometimes painfully so,' Miller said of the training. 'It's not that easy. And then you get it to the point where you're proficient at it. And at night, you use those instruments all the time.' Challenges of flying near Ronald Reagan National Airport Pilots operating around Reagan National Airport face unique challenges and must have a 'heightened level of awareness' when navigating the area, said Clint Balog, an associate professor at Embry-Riddle. The Washington-area airport, known to pilots by its abbreviation DCA, is relatively small and doused in light pollution from the surrounding metropolitan area, said Balog, who has flown dozens of corporate flights in and out of the airport. 'In DCA, whenever I've flown in there, I found that the light pollution there is among the worst I've flown into,' he said. It's always pretty bad, especially early at night.' Balog said pilots have to be precise, especially when landing, because that light can distort the surroundings. He said other cities also have light pollution but the compactness of Reagan Airport intensifies the potential confusion. 'All the lighting starts to look the same,' he said. Gaub, the retired Black Hawk pilot, said there have been thousands of military helicopter flights over many years in that particularly dense airspace. 'And this is one that didn't go right out of all those thousands,' he said. 'So it's a testimony to the great procedures that are there, to the pilots that train there and how they operate on a daily basis. It's basically a highly choreographed dance with very little room for maneuver.' Army concerns over helicopter crashes Army leaders sounded the alarm over a rash of helicopter crashes last year, and in April they ordered extra measures including added training. In a briefing with Pentagon reporters after the crash on Thursday, Army aviation chief of staff Jonathan Koziol said there was 'a spike in incidents' last year that prompted the Army to do a safety stand-down, in which units pause flight operations to evaluate safety procedures 'to not allow these types of incidents to happen,' Koziol said. At the time of the stand-down, there were about a dozen Army helicopter accidents that caused 14 deaths in a six-month period, about twice the rate of the previous 10 years, according to Army officials. The Black Hawk helicopter involved in Wednesday's crash is one of many helicopter types used by the military. Maj. Gen. Walter Rugen, director of Army aviation, told reporters last year that 'spatial disorientation' was a trend in the spike in accidents. Rugen said training must reinforce that pilots know 'where you are and where your aircraft is with respect to the ground.' Twelve crashes of the Army Black Hawk helicopter since 2014 have killed 47 service members, according to data provided by the military. One of the crashes was a nighttime mid-air collision of two Black Hawk helicopters near Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in 2023 that killed nine service members. The pilots were wearing night vision goggles during the training exercise, army officials said. The most recent crash was on Nov. 10, 2023, when five Army soldiers were killed during aerial refueling training in the Mediterranean Sea.
