TurdBird
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Here is a link to the full article which includes a video.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flbstudents0217sbmar03,0,5577851.story
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flbstudents0217sbmar03,0,5577851.story
Foreign students fill South Florida skies, but communication, airspace woes grow
By Ken Kaye | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
March 3, 2008
On any given day, the skies over South Florida are filled with student pilots from India, China and other foreign lands learning the rudiments of flight. Most hope to become professional pilots.
Their growing numbers have been a boon to the local economy as well as to flight schools that specialize in training foreign pilots. One of those, Dean International in Miami, has become so busy that it bought 32 extra training planes and hired 23 additional instructors. "They have a big economic impact on this area," Robert Dean, the school's owner, said of the foreign students. "Every single one of them goes out and buys a laptop. They spend money in restaurants and to occupy housing."
Yet, the students, who now number in the hundreds each year, also have put a strain on South Florida's airspace, which already is bustling with airline and corporate planes, authorities said.
They are a particular headache for air traffic controllers, who must communicate with a large number of inexperienced fliers who don't always understand complex or rapid-fire instructions in American-accented English.
"You have to speak slower. You can't condense transmissions," said Jim Marinitti of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association in Miami. "They frequently ask controllers to repeat instructions."
And, simply by virtue of the fact that they add to the congestion in the sky, other pilots must keep a sharper lookout. In December, a student pilot from India and another plane collided in the air, killing both pilots. The accident is still under investigation.
The students are sure to keep coming, and in ever greater numbers.
Because of furious growth in civil aviation in Asia, notably in India and China, combined with the decline of the U.S. dollar, the number of foreigners learning to fly in South Florida has exploded, with more than 500 arriving in the past year alone.
Many have come on two-year visas, enduring tough background checks implemented since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Specifically, officials from both the U.S. Transportation Security Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement examine every foreign national applying to take flight training, TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz said.
"These checks ensure that individuals that may pose a threat to aviation do not receive flight training, preventing them from obtaining Federal Aviation Administration certificates," she said.
Florida flight schools, in particular, are careful to review each aspiring pilot, the school owners say, since the state was a training ground for many of the 9-11 hijackers.
"They can't start training until they're approved and all documents are in place," said Terry Fensome, owner of Pelican Airways Flight Training Center at North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines.
With students' time here limited, they undertake a demanding training regimen, as South Florida's year-round good weather allows them to take accelerated courses. Most will pay more than $30,000 to earn their commercial licenses and obtain the skills to fly in poor visibility conditions and in larger planes.
Then comes the reward. After their training is done, aviation analysts say, the graduates are virtually certain of landing a high-paying job because many Asian airlines and corporations are buying hundreds of new planes and need pilots.
According to aviation authorities in India, that country has fewer than 3,000 pilots now — yet will need more than 15,000 during the next two decades. The current shortage is so severe that Air India last year turned to the Indian Air Force to supply it with experienced pilots. Other airlines were forced to hire foreigners.
Pan Am International Flight Academy at Miami International Airport is currently training about 200 students from India. After arriving with no flying experience, they learn to handle jet simulators within six months.
Judi Blas, an academy spokeswoman, said one reason so many students come to South Florida is India lacks flight schools.
Kemper Aviation flight school, based in Lantana, markets directly in India and has a section on its Web site geared to appeal to Indian students. As a result, it has become one of the most popular flight schools in South Florida for Indian students.
Two of Kemper's Indian students died in recent flight accidents. On Dec. 8, Cleon Alvares, 25, of Mumbai, India, was flying solo in a small Cessna trainer when it collided with a twin-engine Piper flown by Harry Duckworth, 56, of Waverly, Pa. Both men were killed. The accident occurred in a busy flight training area over the Everglades near the Broward-Palm Beach county line.
On Oct. 27, Arjun Chhikara, 18, and his flight instructor from Kemper Aviation, Anders Selberg, 46, were killed when their single-engine Piper Archer had engine problems and crashed on a golf course near Boynton Beach. A third occupant, also a student pilot from India, survived.
The fact that Alvares and Chhikara were foreign students was "only a coincidence and played no factor in the outcome," said Jeff Rozelle, Kemper's owner and chief pilot. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the investigations into both accidents are still in the preliminary phase.
Before foreigners can enroll in a U.S. flight school, they must obtain a visa, generally allowing them a two- to five-year visit, and they must speak English fluently, Rozelle said."Most of the students speak very good English, although many have accents," he said. "The Indian students speak 'Queen's English,' primarily from their history of India being a British colony."
Marinitti said the problem is many foreign student pilots cannot understand instructions from controllers unless they are provided in slow, easy terms — and that, in turn, can clog the airwaves.
"If you give them two or three things in one transmission, and they don't get it, you find yourself repeating yourself," he said. "It does slow down the process a lot. But it's one of the things you get used to down here."
When the Indian flight students leave South Florida, they generally have amassed 275 hours of flying time, Dean said. That is enough to get them hired to fly jetliners in India, though the airlines then require additional training. In comparison, most U.S. airlines require at least 500 hours for prospective pilots but prefer considerably more.
Sharad Mangal, of Delhi, is one of the many Indian students who now fly through South Florida skies, yearning to work for an airline.
"I just want to fly," said Mangal, 21, who is taking lessons in a two-seat, single-engine Cessna 152 at Pelican Airways. "It's beating gravity and going against nature."
Ken Kaye can be reached at kkaye@sun-sentinel.com or 954-385-7911.
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