Southern Wings - Flight Training

A Flight Training Change of Focus for Southern Wings

admin — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 21:47:31 +0000

The past few months have been an extremely unsettling and frustrating time for every organisation providing professional flight training in New Zealand. This has been the result of the Government, Ministry of Education and Tertiary Education Commission review of EFTS positions available for flight training in New Zealand. In addition there has been a transition to a new national Diploma in Aviation qualification with several elective “streams” to prepare for implementation in 2012. What this means for Southern Wings is that we have invested an enormous amount of effort into meeting these challenges, securing training positions for applicants for 2012 and ensuring that the standards we set for our organisation and our students are not compromised.

One of the outcomes from this process is that from 2012 Southern Wings has elected not to continue with a new intake for our Helicopter Training operation and to focus all of our resources on Fixed Wing training in the General Aviation, Flight Instructor and Airline streams of the new Diploma in Aviation. We are fully committed to completing the required training for currently enrolled Helicopter students and have ensured the resources are in place to do so. The decision was not taken lightly and it brings to an end a part of our flight training operation which has been very successful in that graduates who were trained in the challenging Fiordland environment have historically moved in to industry employment very quickly.
We are grateful to the helicopter instructing staff we have had who set high standards and ensured that we were instrumental in producing graduates of a very high standard.

We now look forward to further developing our partnership with Air New Zealand as we focus on the task of preparing graduates for exciting career opportunities in the General Aviation, Flight Training and the Airline aviation environments.

New B Category Helicopter Instructor

admin — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 04:21:58 +0000

The Southern Wings helicopter instructing team recently celebrated with Dan Harrison who has progressed from a C Category instructor to B Category.

Daniel has proved to be a very valuable part of the team at Southern Wings ably taking charge of the delivery of helicopter specific theory subject courses. We look forward to utilizing Dan’s increased range of instructing privileges and his expertise and enthusiasm.

Well done Daniel.

A Past Student Returns to Show Off His Baby

admin — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 04:26:44 +0000

Matt Hollands graduated from Southern Wings in 2006 and since has worked overseas flying single engine turbine aircraft on survey operations. His work has taken him to all the continents and many countries and into all sorts of interesting and testing situations.

Matt recently returned to New Zealand to fly Cessna Caravan aircraft in Canterbury. One of Matt’s passions has been to put his love of aerobatics to use in the North American Harvard aircraft he part owns as a syndicate member.

On a recent return to Southern Wings to renew his instrument rating Matt expressed a desire to fly the Harvard ZK – XSA to Invercargill and to make it available to staff and students to go for a flight in. Which was ideal for the instructors Matt had flown with as a student and those who had renewed his aerobatics rating. One of the things we love about our moderately sized people oriented flight training organisation is seeing our students come back when they have made their place in the world and in aviation.

Thanks for sharing your passion and your aeroplane with a new generation of students Matt.

Annual Awards Presentation Evening

admin — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 04:23:14 +0000

Southern Wings held its Annual Awards Presentation Evening on Friday June 24^th. The evening is an occasion to celebrate the aviation achievements of students and staff with the whole of the organisation and especially with family and friends of the students. Students receive their wings and have additional milestones and qualifications publicly acknowledged. There are also some special awards presented in recognition of excellence.

Southern Wings special guest for the evening this year was Dave Morgan, Chief Pilot for Air New Zealand, who follows in the wake of last years guest, speaker and presenter of special awards, our own Mayor Tim Shadbolt.

Dave Morgan presenter the coveted Southern Wings Student of the Year Award to two students, Vlad Iancu, a fixed wing graduate who has just completed his CPL and Multi Engine IFR qualifications. John Ross was presented with the Student of the Year Award for helicopter. We are immensely proud of the achievements of our students and we are always ready to celebrate excellence.

Partnership with Air New Zealand

admin — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 00:25:20 +0000

A partnership between New Zealand’s largest airline and an Invercargill aviation college will help the country’s budding commercial pilots get a foot in the door.
Launched this week, the Air New Zealand Aviation Institute has partnered with five Kiwi flight training organisations to develop career training options for aspiring pilots. Southern Wings, located at Invercargill Airport, was one of the organisations to make the cut after a “rigorous” selection process.
Chief executive and chief pilot Bryan Jones said the association with Air New Zealand had its advantages, and meant changes in the way Southern Wings trained its students.

Previously students would complete their training and the required 200 hours of flying time (for a commercial pilot), gain industry experience and then be recruited by an airline and trained for that job.
Under the new programme, aspiring pilots would be trained and prepared for an airline job from the very start and would have to meet the new standard whether they planned to fly for commercial airlines or not. Once trained, pilots would be eligible for the airline induction programme as they would have met airline-style entry criteria.

“They are stepping right back to the beginning, the very first day they go to a training institution they are learning how to do things the airline way. Up until now Air New Zealand recruited from industry, now they are doing the selection before training begins,” senior instructor and chief ground instructor Tony Dawson said. “A better standard of candidate is required. Our focus has always been quality and Air New Zealand recognises that.’

While the new training programme would not mean all students would be guaranteed a job with Air New Zealand once qualified, it would move them to the top of the list when they applied for jobs with the airline in the future.
Air New Zealand had created the programme to “ensure a future supply of commercial airline pilots is available for the New Zealand aviation industry – including Air New Zealand”.

The flight training organisations selected are Southern Wings (Invercargill), Air Hawke’s Bay (Hastings), International Aviation Academy of New Zealand (Christchurch), Massey University School of Aviation (Palmerston North) and Nelson Aviation College (Motueka).