University Aviation Education: An Integrated Model

Abstract

As indicated at the Regional Air Transport Training Convention and Tradeshow (RATS 2000) at Daytona Beach, FL, on February 8-9, 2000, the United States regional airlines fully recognize that the frequently-discussed shortage of regional airline pilots is now a fact rather than a forecast. The regional airline conference attendees also felt that potential pilot shortages in the major airlines are probably not far behind. Over the past few decades, the airline industry has relied upon the military for its primary source of experienced pilots. However, with increased commercial airline expansion, coupled with the Vietnam era trained pilots approaching retirement age and the recent low military pilot training production, the United States now faces a shortage of highly experienced pilots in both the military and the commercial airline industry. While flight programs have been developed to meet these shortfalls with increased training, consideration should also be given to improving the aviation education process itself, which is the foundation of flight training. University aviation training programs, because of their comprehensive academic environments, offer excellent opportunities to develop and deliver state-of-the-art aviation curricula and become the new primary resource for commercial airline pilots. A key question to help resolve the impact of the commercial pilot shortage should be: Can an enhanced aviation academic education and flight training program help accelerate university-trained pilots into airline cockpits. This paper draws upon research conducted in the Aeronautical Management Technology Department at Arizona State University (Karp, 1996) and addresses potential educational enhancements through the implementation of an integrated aviation learning model, the Aviation Education Reinforcement Option (AERO). The AERO model is a learning strategy that incorporates elements of the adult education paradigm, learning style theory, cooperative and collaborative learning techniques, and personal computer-based aviation training devices (PCATDs), to span the long-term retention and application gap that can occur between the classroom and the flight line. This paper suggests that the AERO model, when combined with flight training that emphasizes airline procedures from the very beginning, has the potential to reduce the pilot training time required between the universities’ academic classrooms and flight training environments, and the commercial airline cockpit.