Aviation center offers pilot training for free

Aviation center offers pilot training for free

By T. Sima Gunawan

TANGERANG, West Java (JP): Who says it costs a lot of money to
become a pilot? Not the prestigious flying school here, which
seeks to break new ground through their subsidized programs at
the Curug Aviation Training Center (CATC).

Under the management of the Ministry of Transportation, the
CATC offers free education for those who pass all enrollment
tests.

"Not only do the students not have to pay, they even get a
monthly allowance, though it is not much," I Dewa Putu Suma,
director of the training center, told The Jakarta Post yesterday.

High school graduates interested in CATC have to take a series
of difficult tests, including an aptitude test.

Established in 1952, CATC's drop-out rate was once as high as
50 percent. Since requiring the aptitude test in 1975, however,
the drop-out rate has plummeted to between 10 and 20 percent,
according to Suma.

The number of students who enroll at CATC is increasing.

Santo Budiono, head of the Education and Training Agency of
the Transportation Ministry, said there were almost 19,000 high
school students who took the enrollment tests this year compared
to 11,250 students in the previous year. The school generally
accept between 300 to 400 new students each year, who then learn
how to become pilots, technicians, mechanics and air traffic
controllers.

In the past it admitted 60 new students to the flying section.
But starting next January, the school will accept 120 students,
due to today's high demand for pilots.

Budiono said that Indonesia would need 1,180 new pilots within
the next five years. The country's existing five flying schools,
the CATC, Juanda, Aviando, Deriya, and Sarana Flying Club, still
produce fewer than 100 graduates yearly.

"Next year the Curug Aviation Training Center will improve its
status as an aviation institute," Budiono said.

They will add 46 new single engine aircraft, seven double
engine aircraft and five advanced turbo prop aircraft to the
school's collection, which also owns 24 single engine aircrafts
and three twin engine aircrafts at present.

"We will be the only flying school with the advanced turbo
prop aircraft," Budiono said.

The prospective pilots will also have to study longer, from 18
months now to two years, Suma said.

The government has allocated Rp 61 million in educational
money for pilots and between Rp 10 to 11 million for students of
other disciplines.

"If they want to work for a private airliner once they
graduate, the company has to return their training costs," Suma
said.

So far the school has produced 1,445 pilots, including four
women.

Denying any discrimination against women, he said that the
school has exactly the same enrollment requirements for both men
and women.

According to the school, there are so few female graduates
because the number of women registering in the school is also
small.

Foreigners

Yesterday, Budiono closed an eight-week advanced course on
airworthiness, which was held under the program of Technical
Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC) meeting in Karachi
in 1992.

Thirteen participants from Uganda, Maldives, Suriname, China,
Iran and Indonesia took part in the course.

Suma said that since 1979 CATC had graduated 213 people
through 12 advanced courses for participants from 19 developing
countries in the Asia- Pacific region.

Before the Karachi meeting, CATC held the courses on the
subjects of airworthiness, avionic, gas turbine and helicopter
maintenance in cooperation with United Nations Development
Program (UNDP), which provided financial assistance to the
participants. UNDP later stopped funding the program, but it
continued as the participating countries agreed to allocate funds
for the courses as declared in their 1992 meeting.