The College of Maine at Augusta has acquired a brand new Cirrus SR20 GS airplane that can enable the college to proceed its enlargement of state-of-the-art pilot instruction in Maine. UMA, the one college within the state and certainly one of solely two in New England to supply levels in each conventional flight and distant pilot instruction, acquired the aircraft for its aviation diploma and certificates packages to assist remedy a important workforce hole in pilot coaching, and make it simpler for veterans to pursue aviation careers after their army service.
UMA’s aviation program started in 2013 and was established as a public-private partnership between UMA and Maine Instrument Flight of Augusta. Flight coaching was accomplished on the Augusta Airport and Educational coaching was accomplished at UMA. Maine Instrument Flight has FAA Licensed Half 141 Flight coaching for Personal Pilot, Instrument, Business, and Licensed Flight Teacher.
Mixed with the college’s present flight simulators situated at Brunswick Touchdown, Brunswick, and it’s partnership with MIF in Augusta, “the SR20 is the cornerstone of a pilot coaching program that can compete with another program within the east”, says Greg Jolda, aviation teacher and program coordinator. “Greg has an incredible imaginative and prescient for the way forward for the pilot coaching program at UMA and with Maine Instrument Flight. We’re proud to accomplice with UMA and might’t wait to see the SR20 in motion”, says Chad Morris, proprietor and CEO of Maine Instrument Flight.
The brand new UMA Cirrus aircraft will present college students with coaching in excessive efficiency plane with the most recent cockpit design. New coaching syllabi for Personal, Instrument, and Business will embrace specialised simulation and Digital Actuality coaching, all with the target of offering one of the best in flight coaching with essentially the most environment friendly use of the scholar’s monetary assets. Use of simulation and Digital Actuality could have an environmental impression as properly, saving a big quantity of gas.
Along with the brand new Cirrus, UMA additionally has a full-motion Redbird FMX Simulator, and a industrial 737 Simulator at its Brunswick location. The simulators are acknowledged by the FAA as an Superior Plane Coaching Machine, which means college students can log time towards Personal, Instrument, and Business certifications within the coaching system towards the completion of certification necessities. UMA has additionally taken a web page from the Air Power’s UPT 2.0 and is starting to implement using Digital Actuality in its coaching. These efforts not solely maintain aviation college students safer, it considerably reduces their training prices related to precise flying an airplane.
UMA’s public aviation program is among the many nation’s most inexpensive and produces pilots for a variety of in-demand profession choices from industrial flight to public security and well being to agriculture functions.
UMA’s aviation program has already demonstrated its job producing capability and has a longtime pipeline of rapid job placement with MIF in Maine. Jolda says, “We’ve had 5 graduates that had been instructors at MIF after which secured positions at regional airways. Plus, we at present have seven graduates serving as Instructors there. These college students will stay as instructors for at the very least 2–3 years, build up flying time, to increase their profession alternatives.” Different graduates have gone on to work as first officers for airways like Southwest and different main airways.
For extra details about UMA’s aviation program, go to https://uma.edu/aviation.
