LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Taking off and flying over the Las Vegas Valley in a Redbird TD2 flight simulator is more stressful than it looks. Yet for students at Faith Lutheran High School, flying a plane is as easy as riding a bike.
On Thursday, students and faculty will unveil the Odor Family Flight Academy on the Faith Lutheran campus during a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Students will soar to new altitudes in the $1.1 million classroom and aviation lab, marking the progress of the academy and its flight club.
“I really really like it,” said Eliana Rau, a junior at Faith Lutheran. “It really helps me with my flight training because we get to come here and fly on the simulators which takes off a lot of time in the airplane.”
Just like learning how to drive a car, students have to log a lot of flying time. The Federal Aviation Administration requires 1500 flight hours.
Rau says next year she’ll earn her pilot’s license before graduating from high school, which is an accomplishment that will make her father and grandfather proud, both of whom served in the Air Force then flew commercial airplanes.
Pilots have to be 17 years old to earn a license, and Rau’s flight instructor, Bianca Lorenz, said it’s important to spark an interest in aviation at a young age. As teenagers grow older, the more experience they’ll gain. However, Lorenz also says exposing more youth to a career in aviation will help combat the pilot shortage that Southern Nevada and the rest of America are seeing.
“Aviation suffered from the pandemic,” Lorenz said. “But also, not enough pilots are being trained to replace the number of pilots who are reaching retirement age.”
Commercial airlines have beefed up incentives to attract new pilots by raising salaries, adding sign-on bonuses and offering better benefits. Delta Airlines has eliminated its requirement to have a four-year college degree, while neither United Airlines nor American Airlines require a bachelor’s degree.
Attracting young…
