YH resumes state-funded pilot training
Feb 09, 2017
Svensk Pilotutbildning (SPU) has been awarded an agreement with the Swedish National Agency for Higher Vocational Education ("Myndigheten för Yrkeshögskolan") for training of 14 new helicopter pilots a year, until 2020, which in total means 28 positions funded by the Swedish Government.
The agency got a lot of attention for its January 2014 decision, where it decided to fund a total of 60 slots for new commercial helicopter pilots. The ground-breaking decision changed the helicopter training climate by adding an unprecedented number of simultaneous students. However, in 2016 the agency decided to discontinue with helicopter training for a period of time. The state-funded training will now resume, with little information regarding factual employment rate of the last 60 pilots.
After acceptance to the two-year 480-point higher vocational education programme, the pilots will gain a full ATPL(H)IR theory and a CPL(H) license with 135 flight hours. The Swedish Government will be funding the programme in order to safeguard the availability of qualified pilots for national parapublic and civil helicopter operations in the future.
Svensk Pilotutbildning conducts flight training with the Robinson R22 and R44 as well as with the Airbus Helicopters EC120.
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