Avionics News August 2012 - 29
“Avionics equipment is so expensive, and the technology changes so fast, it’s difficult for any school, even one as new as ours, to keep up with the industry.”
KENT IRICK, Wichita Area Technical College
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rank Pendergrass, who started his avionics career in the Navy, has seen a lot of change during the 31 years he has served students at Spartan College of Aeronautics & Technology in Tulsa, Okla. As director of the south campus, he’s responsible for avionics and the associate and bachelor’s degree programs. The school has taught the subject since its 1928 founding, initially as part of the airframe and powerplant program. Its curriculum grew with new technology, such as radio telephone, until it became a separate program in the 1960s. “It was called aircraft instruments and electronics, because they didn’t start using the term ‘avionics’ until the early 1970s,” Pendergrass said. When he started teaching, theory trumped hands-on experience. “We would hold up a picture and say, ‘This is radar.’ Now we have the actual color radar in the lab for them to work on.” The school’s current owners have invested a great deal in new equipment from a variety of original equipment manufacturers, so the students “are working on actual boxes that they will work on when they go out into the industry.” Industry partnerships have been important to this effort, Pendergrass said, and the school needs to develop more of them. Supported by Spartan’s 10-member industry advisory panel, Pendergrass updated the avionics curriculum in 2007. It emphasizes an aircraft-oriented focus on installation and system troubleshooting over bench repair, and the change cut three months of manual research and signal tracing in what was an 18-month program. Beyond keeping up with technology, Pendergrass said
F
avionics faces two big challenges. The first is getting students excited and keeping them in aviation, because “we’re losing a lot of graduates to the electronics industry.” The second is unmanned aircraft systems. A member of the National Center for Aerospace & Transportation
A K-State student works on her semester-long installation project – a Garmin 430 with CDI and audio panel.
Photo courtesy of KSU-Salina
Technologies committee working the standards for UAS technicians, he said most schools don’t have the faculty or facilities to teach the information technology used in ground control stations. Outside of Denver, Redstone College has made similar
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avionics news
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Avionics News August 2012
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News August 2012
Avionics News August 2012 - Intro
Avionics News August 2012 - Cover1
Avionics News August 2012 - Cover2
Avionics News August 2012 - 1
Avionics News August 2012 - 2
Avionics News August 2012 - 3
Avionics News August 2012 - 4
Avionics News August 2012 - 5
Avionics News August 2012 - 6
Avionics News August 2012 - 7
Avionics News August 2012 - 8
Avionics News August 2012 - 9
Avionics News August 2012 - 10
Avionics News August 2012 - 11
Avionics News August 2012 - 12
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Avionics News August 2012 - 16
Avionics News August 2012 - 17
Avionics News August 2012 - 18
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Avionics News August 2012 - 29
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Avionics News August 2012 - Cover3
Avionics News August 2012 - Cover4
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