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ASL Flight School gets green light for new courses
Students of the Air Services Limited [ASL] Flight School will now be eligible to undergo some
Captain Reynell Barnes
additional courses. This is due to the fact that the local Flight School has been granted full approval to now offer courses in the areas of Flight Operations Officer, Certified Flight Instructor and Certified Flight Instructor Instrument, Crew Resource Management and Airline Transport Pilot Aeroplane.
This disclosure was yesterday made by Principal of the Flight School, Jamaica-born, Captain Reynell Barnes who told Kaieteur News that “we just recently got approval to teach these new courses. The approval was granted this month.
Previously, the Flight School, through the tutelage of four instructors, including Captain Barnes, only offered Private Pilot Licence, Instrument Rating, Multi-Engine Rating and Commercial Licence courses.
When asked what prompted the move to increase the courses, Captain Barnes said, “We felt that we had to diversify our training to not just garner one type of market… The courses that we started off with would allow a person who doesn’t know to fly an airplane to go and fly an airplane and be paid for it too.”
He however revealed that with the additional courses, the Flight School can, for instance, better cater to the training of flight dispatchers too, and even help to reduce human error during flight.
Speaking about the flight dispatcher training, he explained that “every airline or any type of air operator has to have a flight dispatcher and the flight dispatcher does things like gathering weather information, planning the flights for the pilots, monitoring the weight and loading of the aircraft; all of those technical items help to relieve the pilot of a lot of his/her workload.”
He underscored, “It is not just about the pilot anymore, it is about persons within the aviation field closely associated with the movement of persons or cargo.”
However, with the Airline Transport Pilot course, an individual will be able to secure additional training that makes them capable of commanding a plane from the pilot’s seat.
“It’s additional skills and knowledge that is required to undertake that type of responsibility,” said Captain Barnes, as he explained that the Crew Resource Management Course is designed to allow more than one pilot working together to recognize human errors and to eliminate or reduce them.
“What has been found globally is that at least 70 percent of incidents and accidents are as a result of human error and less than 30 percent of those are as a result of the actual airplane.”
Although Captain Barnes has been the Principal of the local Flight School for just about one year, he has been a pilot for about eight years. His role, moreover, at the Flight School, is nestled in ensuring that the standards of the school are as high as possible and that it is developed accordingly.
“The instructor courses can allow an individual to become someone like me or one of the other instructors – to teach persons and give them the qualifications and the necessary skill set to teach persons how to fly,” Captain Barnes reiterated.
The Air Services Flight School secures its certification from the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority [GCAA]. The GCAA is an International Civil Aviation Organization [ICAO] and ICAO is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It codifies the principles and techniques of international air navigation and fosters the planning and development of international air transport to ensure safe and orderly growth. Since the body is a branch of the United Nations, and Guyana is a member state, this means it provides guidance to the local civil aviation authority.
“That means that as a pilot you can perhaps go to Trinidad and do a simple conversion examination to get a Trinidadian license without having to do the examination over again. So that’s what makes it [our programmes] sellable, so to speak,” said Captain Barnes, as he acknowledged that the courses offered by the ASL Flight School are on par with what is offered overseas.
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