Education/training
The cost of Seneca's four-year program runs to about $40,000 -- but the job market for pilots has hardly looked betterCareers soar at aviation schoolAsked if he's had any hairy moments during his time in the air, Dean Sela, 22, calmly remembers he was flying a small Cessna with his sister in the passenger seat when the plane experienced almost full engine failure, a highly unusual occurrence, but no less unnerving for that. |
|
 [ 2007-06-27 ] |
Seneca students working on one of four flight simulators at the school. The college also owns 14 planes. (Richard Douglas/Seneca College)
Asked if he's had any hairy moments during his time in the air, Dean Sela, 22, calmly remembers he was flying a small Cessna with his sister in the passenger seat when the plane experienced almost full engine failure, a highly unusual occurrence, but no less unnerving for that.
Still, Sela landed safely, then hopped into another plane the flying school he worked for wanted delivered to another airfield. Something like the incident in the Cessna is a bit like learning to ride a horse, Sela says: if you fall off you get back on and try again.
Sela is one of 40 or so students a year who graduate from Seneca College's aviation program, which began when the school opened in 1968 and has since put hundreds of commercial pilots in thousands of cockpits.
Dominic Totino, director of maintenance, aviation and flight technology at Seneca, says the college takes 80 students a year into its Bachelor of Applied Flight Technology program, half of them straight from high school. On average, about 10% to 30% of the students are female.
Being accepted into the program doesn't mean a student will graduate, Totino cautions. About 50 to 55 students make it through first year, then flight training in subsequent years weeds out another 10 to 15.
"The first year (of the program) is very similar to the first year of a science and engineering course," Totino says.
High school graduation is a requirement to get into the program, and applicants need Grade 12 credits in calculus, math, physics, chemistry and English. That's because Seneca doesn't just teach these students how to fly, it also trains them on how the aircraft works.
Flight training starts in second year. The college has 14 planes of its own and four simulators. The simulators are cockpit-specific, so there's one for a Cessna 172, the first plane the students fly, another for a Beechcraft Bonanza and a third for a Beechcraft Baron, the multi-engine plane students graduate on. The fourth simulator is for the Canada Regional Jet, a 60-passenger plane that requires two pilots to fly it, and is used for Seneca's jet transition program, which Sela is completing now.
LOG FLYING HOURS
At the end of their four years students are qualified to fly commercially, but to obtain an air transportation pilot's licence they still need to log a certain number of flying hours and pass exams on large aircraft and the weather. Airlines that hire new pilots train to fly specific aircraft.
The cost of the four-year program runs to about $40,000. That might seem like a lot of money, but the job market for pilots has hardly looked better. Totino says airlines in Europe and Asia are hiring, and North America needs 17,000 pilots a year, some of them are here at home. "Air Canada is looking at hiring about 400 pilots a year," Totino says.
A First Officer just starting out will earn about $40,000 to $50,000 a year, and after 10 years will pull in more than $100,000. Top drawer captains with lots of seniority and experience can expect to earn twice that.
As for Sela, he says he'll start looking for a job in early summer. He should be successful: he's had a private pilot's licence since he was 17 -- before he was able to drive a car.
Would you ever work for a social or charitable enterprise in the third sector?