Avionics News August 2015 - 22

TRAINING TOMORROW'S TECHNICIANS
Aeronautics, shared M eisbach' s
thoughts and added that in his part
of the country, area avionics schools
are doing a good j ob overall but, in
his opinion, are lagging in teaching
the particular skills necessary
to compete in today' s avionics
environment. In particular, he
wants more emphasis on high-speed
information technology skills.
" W hen you talk training to
meet today' s needs in a twoyear program, I think you' re
talking about educating a young
technician on the fundamentals in
key areas," he said. " One I would
like to believe they are trying to
concentrate on is digital databus
technologies, including Ethernet.
It is becoming the backbone of so
many installations today."
U nfortunately, from Ochs'
perspective, the schools he' s
familiar with have yet to catch up
with these changing needs. But he
also stated that he appreciates the
tough situation avionics schools are
in today.
" If you think about this new stuff,
it j ust didn' t ex ist when I went to
school - none of it," he said. " But
in the past 1 0 years or so, it' s all
come on fast and strong. Even
someone who graduated five years
ago has little understanding of what
today' s systems are all about, unless
they get continual training. I know
schools don' t have the budgets and
flex ibility to respond q uickly to
industry needs."
So what are the avionics
schools doing?
W hile it' s impossible to say
what all the schools with avionics
2 2

AVIONICS NEWS

AUGUST

2015

Photo courtesy of Duncan Aviation

Continued from page 21

o meet their s ecific needs man sho s and com anies li e uncan viation are com lementing the
training their technicians receive at an avionics school with customi ed in house training rograms

programs are doing to meet
changing needs, the two contacted
for this story ( Spartan College of
Aeronautics and Technology, and
K ansas State U niversity- Salina)
are working hard to adj ust their
programs to ensure their graduates
meet industry needs.
" W e' ve been working on building
an avionics program that students
want to attend and that would instill
real-world skills and ex periences in
those students," ex plained R aylene
Alex ander, associate professor at
K SU -Salina. " W e are very lucky at
K -State to have Garmin' s support and
a G1 000 for students to work on; I
believe that students learn by doing.

" For ex ample, we have the latest
in test eq uipment, but instead of
demonstrating how to use it, I give
them the manual and ask them to
figure it out. It may sound laz y on
my part, but in the industry, you
are ex pected to figure out things
yourself. If they are troubleshooting
a sq uawk, they must be able to use
the manual and their heads to figure
it out; no one is going to show them
the answer."
As for meeting emerging industry
needs, Alex ander said K SU -Salina
has a new course, Advanced
Avionics, which is an online course
taught by industry ex perts. The class
has the students researching new

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