Aeronautical science program to take flight at UH-Hilo

HILO — After years of effort, a four-year aeronautical science program will finally take flight at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

The provisional bachelor of science degree was approved by the UH Board of Regents last month and has two concentrations — one in commercial professional pilot training, and another in commercial aerial information technology.

UH-Hilo has considered adding an aviation program for years but the idea has never come to fruition.

Efforts began in 2012, but it was hard to attract qualified flight providers, said Ken Hon, interim vice chancellor for academic affairs.

Some attempts to secure state funding for such a program failed in the intervening years, and in early 2017, the Board of Regents Committee on Academic and Student Affairs postponed a decision on creating an aviation program.

Since then, Hon said “we’ve reworked the proposal a lot,” and the school has collaborated with state Sen. Kai Kahele, a commercial pilot himself, and other pilots, to look at a different training model.

For the commercial pilot track, Hon said they “came up with this idea of doing the preparation, so in three years, you do the class work and simulator work (on campus) and in the last year go to a bigger, established provider” for the flight school.

In documents submitted to the Board of Regents, the university said that commercial pilot track will provide students a direct pathway to earn all required Federal Aviation Administration licenses and certificates required to pursue a commercial pilot license — and therefore a career as a commercial airline pilot.

The second concentration will focus on work with unmanned aviation systems, or drones.

“You don’t have to be really great with a crystal ball to look out and see what the future is going to be with these unmanned aircraft, because the military is already there,” he said.

In the future, Hon said drones could be integrated into commercial aviation airspace, and the university is looking to train students in both concentrations so that they have the “same knowledge of how to operate within commercial airspace and how to get your aircraft integrated into commercial airspace in a safe manner.”

And in order to “really maximize the job capability,” the university wants to train the aerial information technology students to really understand what drones can be used for, the type of sensors attached, and what kind of data they can collect and process, he said.

That data collection and processing will allow for “a much higher level of jobs than being a drone pilot.”

Kahele, a Hilo Democrat, said the program is a “huge opportunity” for local students to pursue careers as pilots and in emerging markets like unmanned aircraft.

Over the course of the next 15 years, there will be a shortage of 600,000 pilots worldwide, he said.

The estimated four-year costs for the commercial pilot training concentration at UH-Hilo are also projected to be significantly less compared to similar programs at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Arizona State University and Central Washington University, according to information presented to the Board of Regents.