WMU to teach with planes that will offer commercial airline-like experience

Western Michigan University is calling its flight training program the most sophisticated in the collegiate world after entering a long-term partnership that will bring a new fleet of airplanes to student pilots and prepare them like no other school for commercial airline flying. WMU’s College of Aviation partnership with Brown Aviation Lease Inc. and Avidyne Corp. of Lincoln, both out of Massachusetts, will have the college sending its current fleet of Cirrus aircraft to be retrofitted with new engines and flight deck avionics systems. Avidyne’s Entegra II Release 9 flight deck avionics system is “a sophisticated new flight system that will give WMU flight students experience that is easily transferable to commercial aviation,” says Cheryl Roland, WMU spokeswoman. For the past five years, WMU has leased a fleet of 26 Cirrus aircraft, Roland says. During the past two, the college has been involved in negotiations to trade the leased planes in for the next generation of Cirrus. The entire retrofit and fleet transition, valued at $8 million, includes the value of the airplanes, new engines and the new avionics. Dave Powell, dean of the WMU College of Aviation, says, “This is a tremendous deal and will allow us to offer our students the most advanced avionic system used in flight training anywhere. We’ll continue to offer flight training equipment that keeps us four to five years ahead of every other program — not just in this country, but in the world.”Writer: Kim North ShineSource: Cheryl Roland, Western Michigan University