School of Aviation start the year with record-breaking flight hours

Chief Flight Instructor Paul Kearney says the record reflects the efforts not only of the instructors, students, and the scheduling team, but also the efforts of the maintenance engineers. Under the close supervision of Maintenance Manager Tom McCready, they keep the aircraft in top shape. “It’s not unusual to see our aircraft start flying at 7am and still going at 9pm, seven days a week. A huge thank you to everyone who did their bit to make this happen,” Mr Kearney says.

Bachelor of Aviation student pilots are required to complete a demanding schedule of training flights as part of their professional development. Achieving this schedule can be challenging as there are a number of factors that influence when flights are able to occur, such as aircraft availability, weather events, staff availability, and accommodating students’ academic obligations.

Despite this, the high number of flying hours achieved in January reflects very high productivity, says Mr Kearney.

He adds that this productivity is also tied to the requirement of keeping aircraft in a safe flying condition at all times, which the team of engineers are tasked with. This means adhering to the standard mandated ground aircraft maintenance inspections by hours, plus regular spot checks and responding to issues on demand as identified by pilots or students during flights.

“Achieving flight hours as submitted means that engineers, flight schedulers, instructors and students all have to work in sync, which is not always an easy task. As well as all that, the weather has to be suitable too.”

The team of maintenance engineers work to keep aircraft in safe flying condition at all times.

Increased productivity and accuracy have also been achieved by developing and adopting a Microsoft Power App to streamline the refuelling of Massey’s aircraft fleet. Via the app, students now submit an aircraft refuelling request and the School benefits from a vastly improved reporting regime on fuel usage and monitoring.

The new refuel app has increased productivity, accuracy and reporting.

Director of the Bachelor of Aviation programme Frank Sharp says, “With Covid lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, we’ve had significant interruptions to the flying programme here at the Aviation Centre. However, I readily acknowledge the team effort that has resulted in the record flight hours for January and I know that everyone here is focused on continuing the momentum towards graduating more young aviators with a difference.”