Flight school uses Web to become ‘satellite campus’

Phoenix-based Westwind School of Aeronautics has teamed with SkyWest Airlines and Utah Valley State College (UVSC) in a program under which ab initio fligh

By Harry Weisberger • Contributor

May 8, 2008

Phoenix-based Westwind School of Aeronautics has teamed with SkyWest Airlines and Utah Valley State College (UVSC) in a program under which ab initio flight students can gain two- or four-year degrees online via the Internet while earning a commercial pilot and CFII certificates and instrument and multi-engine ratings, and a guaranteed SkyWest job interview.

Westwind School of Aeronautics, colocated with Westwind Aviation at Deer Valley Airport in northwest Phoenix, is one of a half-dozen UVSC computer-linked aviation “satellite campuses” and the only one in Arizona. To serve up to 100 full-time students at a time in the concentrated training program, the school has more than doubled its available space in a newly constructed hangar, office and learning center building. The 36,000-sq-ft, $3 million structure was formally dedicated April 27 with an open house featuring a half-dozen warbirds including a B-17 and a B-24 from the Massachusetts-based Collings Foundation. The two-story hangar already houses several corporate aircraft, including PGA touring pro Phil Mickelson’s Gulfstream II. To keep the school’s 40 training aircraft flying, Westwind Aviation’s avionics shop has been moved into the new structure.

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