Originally Posted by
C130driver
Alright guys, I have an idea for this: we have the naval academy and USAF academy that feeds a good majority of military aviators. As brought up before, what about a US aviation academy? Encorporate stringent training standards similar to Mil pilot training. That way when you pop a guy out at the end at 250 hours, there is a higher quality of training mitigating the lack of the other 1250 hours and that person finishes with a R-ATP to be fed to the regionals.
It doesn't even have to be fully tax payer funded, airlines could invest in them. You could create multiple campuses since it would be to alleviate the pilot shortage and boost safety. Other countries have aviation cadet programs.
Not advocating eliminating the 1500 rule but if it were to happen, this might be a good way to ensure a quality product AND alleviate the pilot shortage?
There are a lot of cost numbers out there for training Military pilots and the cost to train a fighter guy is higher. As a average however 5 million is probably not a bad number. That number does not include infrastructure. The cost to create and then operate this academy is going to be huge.
Who pays?