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A young man who's sitting on a couch in the waiting room of Spokane Airways' flight-training building hunches over a dual flight slip, which he is trying to complete. Occasionally he leans over to another young man sitting beside him and quietly asks a question about the form, then keeps writing.
The second young man's eyes dart about the room as he intently watches various flight instructors arrive and enter a nearby conference room for a short meeting.
Both are enrollees in Spokane Falls Community College's aviation program, and the first young man was awaiting his chance to pilot an airplane for the first time.
"You probably were seeing some excitement, some anxiety, and some dread" in his face, says Lisa Olson, a flight instructor and the manager of the flighttraining center here. "But once they return from that first ride up there, they usually have an ear-to-ear grin, and they're lovin' life."
SFCC, which is partnering with the University of North Dakota, in Grand Forks, N.D., began offering its two-year aviation program in the fall of 1998. The he program leases the flight-training building, which is located at Spokane International Airport, from Spokane Airways.
Through the SFCC program, students can earn both private and commercial pilot certificates, with instrument and multi-engine ratings, which allow pilots to fly in poor visibility and to fly planes with more than one engine, respectively, says Olson. Olson is employed by UND to manage the Spokane program, but says she also is on SFCC's payroll as a teacher.
At the end of the two-year program, students are able to transfer to UND with junior standing and earn one of a dozen aviation- related four-year degrees, such as diplomas in airport management, commercial aviation, aviation systems management, atmospheric sciences, and space studies. SFCC is one of only two community colleges in the U.S. that has such a transfer agreement with the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences at UND, which is considered to be one of the...