Submitted Photo
Aviation student Tyler Petersen stands in front of a plane at Natrona County International Airport. He’s pictured holding certificate for the completion of his first solo flight.
By Lane Johnson
Casper College currently offers an aviation program through a partnership with Rising Wings Aviation. While Rising Wings Aviation takes care of the aviation classes off campus, the connection with CC allows students to receive more financial aid, according to the academic chair of the aviation program Justin Eggemeyer.
Eggemeyer spoke with the Chinook about the cost of aviation in general and covered many details about the expensive major. He explained that through CC, students can earn an associate’s degree of applied science in aviation.
“If a student doing aviation wants to take out student loans, they have to do private student loans,” Eggemeyer said.
He explained that many of these private loans require students to provide a “cost of attendance” and Rising Wings Aviation doesn’t provide that information. He went on to explain that Rising Wings Aviation partnered with CC to allow students to provide a cost of attendance for private loans. According to Eggemeyer, Rising Wings Aviation is a separate entity where people can attend flight school without going to CC. Eggemeyer talked about how students can take aviation classes online or at the Natrona County airport. He said a cost chart for Rising Wings Aviation is available on the CC website, separate from the cost of attending the college. CC allows students to complete general classes such as history, math and science that are still required to get a degree in Aviation. Eggemeyer then said Rising Wings Aviation offers the rest of the classes needed.
The Federal Aviation Administration follows very strict rules about hours, so there is no time table for when one can complete their degree, according to Eggemeyer. Students must complete a certain number of flight hours in order to get their license for two different levels of piloting.
Eggemeyer explained that, “a student should be able to go all the way through private, instrument, and then commercial in two academic years. Many do not… because it’s a lot of hours.”
For a private pilot license, students must complete 40 total flight hours and 10 of those hours must be solo flights, according to the Rising Wings Aviation FAA flight chart. The chart also gives students a relative price estimate for each of the four sections of aviation. For the private pilot license alone, there is an estimated cost of $17,000. The total realistic cost estimate for a student obtaining their private and commercial license and their instrument and multi-engine ratings will come out to approximately $101,000.
Eggemeyer explained that the cost is why CC decided to partner with Rising Wings Aviation to help make things somewhat more affordable for students. He also said that students can get jobs as an instructor after a certain amount of hours with Rising Wings Aviation. He said that the opportunity helps students continue getting the many hours required by the FAA. Aviation major Tyler Petersen talked about how CC helped him tremendously on his journey into the aviation program.
He said “I’m still working towards my private license, but attending CC has made my experience a little bit easier.”
Petersen is in his third year at CC and he is pursuing a second associate degree while also continuing his aviation education through Rising Wings Aviation. He credits CC for helping him make his goals more attainable. Though CC doesn’t directly have an aviation program, its partnership with Rising Wings Aviation helps many students find a more affordable option to get into the aviation field.
