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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, May 1, 2005

Pilot project adjusting course

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

KALAELOA — Ramsey Pedersen twisted and pumped the controls of his cockpit simulator as the landing strip in front of him suddenly disappeared below the horizon and Pedersen's plane flipped over and plummeted into the green grass of the computer-generated earth.

Ramsey Pedersen, center, and Bob Bumgarner, right, are among those involved in the proposed pilot training program — which is looking for a financial kick-start after not making the cut for state funding.

Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

Two days later, Pedersen's plan to start a commercial pilot training center for Asia-Pacific airlines at Kalaeloa suffered a similar nosedive.

Pedersen's hopes to obtain $2 million in state funding died in the state Legislature late last week as lawmakers told the Honolulu Community College chancellor that they had too many good ideas competing for too little money.

So Pedersen picked through the wreckage of the plan on Friday and set out to find private partners for a commercial pilot training center in HCC's 105,000-square-foot Pacific Aerospace Training Center hangar at the former Barbers Point Naval Air Station.

"We're trying to find other ways to kick-start the project," Pedersen said. "We'll be talking to private investors and possibly other training partners that may be interested in the project to see if they would like to come in to start it up."

Since at least 1990, the University of Hawai'i and various potential partners have been talking about a pilot training center in the Islands to tap into the projected demand for 60,000 new pilots for the Asia-Pacific region by the year 2022.

Last year, UH entered into a memorandum of understanding with a subsidiary of the Boeing Co. — Alteon Training LLC — and a company called Global Flyers LLC, run by a former Hawaiian Airlines captain who became a China Airlines official.

The idea is to set up a not-for-profit operation that would train up to 100 Asia-Pacific students per year and get them into the cockpits of commercial airliners as first officers faster and cheaper than other flight programs generally do.

Airline consultants say it's not incongruous to build a training center for airline pilots in Honolulu while Hawai'i's two major airlines are in bankruptcy.

Although the U.S. airline industry continues to struggle, Asian countries cannot train pilots quickly enough to keep up with demand, said Edmund Greenslet, president of Florida-based ESG Aviation Services, who also publishes the airline and aerospace industry newsletter Airline Monitor.

"Air transportation throughout Asia is booming," Greenslet said. "In certain sectors, notably China, it's going to grow even faster. Asia's growth rate is significantly higher than ours. They will become the largest sector in the world in terms of air travel. Getting into the business that feeds off of that would seem to make intuitive business sense."

The gold standard for commercial pilot training currently is found in the United States, Europe and Australia, Greenslet said.

Communicating with foreign students would not be a problem, he said, because English is the universal language of aviation. And students backed by major Asian-Pacific airlines would not face the same visa scrutiny as many other foreigners seeking more basic flight-school training, Greenslet said.

This renovated hangar at the Pacific Aerospace Training Center would be home to the proposed international flight school for commercial pilots.

Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

Hawai'i residents would be eligible, but Pedersen expects that for the first few years the majority of students would be from Asia-Pacific countries and sponsored by Asia-Pacific airlines.

Hawai'i could offer those airlines the geographic advantage of its proximity to Asia, Greenslet said. But its biggest advantage would be partnering with the Boeing subsidiary to provide up-to-date training on Boeing jets.

"Is the Asian market big? Yes," Greenslet said. "Is it growing? Yes. Will it be the biggest air transportation market in the world? Yes. All of that is so. If the ... (Honolulu training center) is done right and executed properly, there's no way it can't be very good."

Under Pedersen's plan, foreign students would live in former Navy dormitories and townhouses at Kalaeloa. They would train in 16 new single- and twin-engine planes outfitted with digital displays based on Boeing commercial aircraft.

But the main draw for Asia-Pacific airlines would be compressing the industry's three separate training programs — basic flight instruction, transition into jet flying and commercial aviation — into one seamless program, said Bob Bumgarner, managing director of Global Flyers LLC.

The current 20 to 24 months needed to put someone with no flight experience into the right seat of a jet airliner would shrink to 17 months and cost 20 percent less in Hawai'i, Bumgarner said. It costs more than $150,000 to train a pilot for similar commercial certifications, according to Bumgarner.

Building a commercial pilot training center in Hawai'i

The demand: A projected 60,000 new pilots needed in the Asia-Pacific region by the year 2022

The facility: A 105,000-square-foot hangar at the former Barbers Point Naval Air Station

The partners: UH, HCC, Alteon Training LLC (a Boeing Co. subsidiary), Global Flyers LLC

The plan: Train about 100 students per year to be commercial pilots; do it faster and cheaper than other flight programs

The cost: About $2 million needed for start-up

One of the keys to the savings in the Hawai'i program will be the up-to-date Boeing-based simulator training provided by Alteon, Bumgarner said. The simulator training is critical in an industry where Bumgarner said he did not sit in the cockpit of a Boeing 747 until he took off with his first load of passengers.

Bumgarner flew for Hawaiian Airlines for 27 years and served as general manager of the flight operations division of China Airlines. He hopes to hire retired Hawaiian and Aloha Airlines pilots as instructors and use his China Airlines connections to attract students from Asia-Pacific airlines.

As he and Pedersen toured the HCC's hangar and flight line last week, Bumgarner said, "there will be no finer place to learn to be an airline pilot than what we'll have here."

But the key will be finding the initial funding that would lead to commitments from Asia-

Pacific airlines, said Ted Liu, director of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

"In other words, it doesn't seem like you will get a commitment from Boeing, or Alteon, or JAL or China Airways or Malaysian Air until you have that upfront investor and you have the training center ready," Liu said.

"We have always supported the concept of trying to develop a training center in Hawai'i and we have testified as much," Liu said. "It is a good initiative, a valid initiative, one that people over the years feel fits with what Hawai'i wants to do. But it's a matter of priorities."

So Pedersen will begin the search to find another partner to come up with something close to the $2 million he originally wanted from the Legislature.

He hopes to have a new proposal to take to the UH Board of Regents in July. If not, Pedersen fears the window of opportunity may close for Hawai'i.

"The market is very competitive and it's very fluid," Pedersen said. Potential Asia-Pacific airline participants "aren't going to wait forever. They'll have to find ways to take care of their needs elsewhere."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.