I apologize that these posts will come out of order. But I realized that I also should be writing about the field trip that took place last thursday, the 8th. Dan, our director, arranged an all day tour to Flight Safety International in Wichita, and then the Cessna Single Engine Factory in Independence, Kansas. Both were extremely enriching experiences!
In the morning we headed to Flight Safety at the bright hour of 7oclock in the morning. Flight Safety International is like one massive flight school. Their clients are pilots with thousands of hours under their belt who need to get type ratings in specific aircraft. They have training centers all over the U.S, Europe, and Asia, with their headquarters being Wichita with six training centers. We went to the Hawker Beechcraft Learning Center where pilots come to get type ratings in all of the Beechcraft King Air series (C90, 200, 350), the Beechjet, the Premier, as well as all of the Hawker Jets (400, 750, 800, 900, 4000) and some with a variety of avionics (like the ProLine 21, or Honeywell, or Collins EFIS 85B.
Training pilots in the actual airplane, with as many trainees as they have, is not cost effective. So flight safety has full motion flight simulators. On our tour by Mike Wallace, program manager of the Beechcraft 350 training and a 1993 Hesston Aviation alum, it was made known that a client can train all of their hours in the simulator, get their checkride in the simulator, and fly a real Beechcraft home. We were thrilled to discover that we would be given a chance to test out the simulator after the tour. At the bottom you can see me in the cockpit of a Beechcraft 350, taking off from JFK International. I am proud to say I can log 0.1 of an hour in a Beech 350! We were also excited to learn that Flight Safety offers internships mainly to Hesston and K-State aviation students. The pay is only about $15/hr, but you get free type ratings in a Beechcraft 350, and Hawker 4000, each worth about $25,000 each! I'd say thats a good deal!
After the exciting tour of Flight Safety, we headed 2 hours south to the Cessna factory. Unfortunately they didn't let us take pictures but the experience was incredible! We got a tour of the factory floor where the Cessna 172, 182, 206, 350 Corvallis, and Citation Mustang were being hand built. The manager that gave us the tour was a very friendly guy who answered all of our questions willingly. One thing that stuck out to me was what he said he looks for in a worker. He looks for the worker who goes out of his or her way to help others, and go the extra mile. He also pointed out that the floor supervisors were in there working with the workers, and weren't there just to "oversee." It was incredible for me to see a basic principle at work amongst a very powerful multi-billion dollar company: servant leadership. That really stuck with me.
We also had the chance to tour the tower facility and met a test pilot there who instructed at Hesston for a number of years. Hesston Aviation connections are everywhere! If I wasn't convinced before, I am now.
At the end of the day we climbed into the van exhausted from a tiring but rewarding day. I only hope that someday I can work as a pilot at either one of those places. I sure would be tickled pink.
Great stuff Sol. I hope too that you could get a job there. You are a good instructor!
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