THE recently established Riverina Aviation College has joined forces with Riverina TAFE to offer a course for secondary school students wishing to learn to fly.
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The flying school was established four months ago by co-directors Ian Bennett and Rhena Geraghty, who is the flight instructor, and a deal was struck with TAFE recently.
Recent changes by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority which come into effect on December 4 will allow students as young as 15 to start the flying component of their training.
A restricted pilot’s licence can be obtained at 16 years and a private pilot’s licence is available at 17 years.
A commercial pilot’s licence can be secured at 18 years.
The college boasts three grade 1 instructors with more than 20,000 hours of flying time experience.
The course is aimed at students in years 11 and 12 and the completion of 120 hours of the program per year contributes two units toward a student’s HSC record.
The program doesn’t include any hands-on flying.
But students can make their own arrangements for flying lessons with the college with parental consent.
Competencies are navigation and flight planning, aircraft systems, human factors, meteorology, flight rules and air law and aerodynamics.
The aircraft fleet includes a Cessna 150, three Cessna 172XPs and a Chipmunk.
The first intake for the program modelled on courses interstate will be in February.
