(Estherville)– The already popular aviation program at Iowa Lakes Community College is about to fly even higher. Tim Busch, Director of the Aviation Program and Chief Flight Instructor at Iowa Lakes says they’ve been awarded a grant through the Federal Aviation Administration…
“The grant’s for $493,000. It’s to help us reach out to the high schools and work with high school students who have an interest in aviation and have them work with us and earn college credit toward aviation courses even before they get out of high school.”
Busch says the prograt at Iowa Lakes Community College has seen significant growth recently…
“I came in five years ago. We kind of did an overhaul of the program and have grown it immensely. We have 18 airplanes and starting this fall we have split the program into a prime location at Estherville and a satellite location at the Spencer Airport, so we have nine airplanes at each location. The growth has been great for us. Two years ago, August of 2022 we were actually ranked as a program. They put us at the first, ranked first community college in the country and third among all the college aviation programs so that’s been pretty exciting.”
Busch says the grant will allow them to grow the program even more…
“We’re working on expanding the drone program. We’ve got some agriculture drones, crop dusting drones now, along with our smaller drones. We do FAA drone pilot courses and that portion is expanding. Also working on a helicopter program, doing the curriculum work and training to bring that up to speed. Hopefully that’s coming soon.”
Meanwhile, Busch says the demand for pilots and other personnel in the aviation industry only continues to grow…
“There was a study done a couple years ago that said the demand at the moment expands out at least 20 years and for the 20 year demand they’re looking at 640,000 pilots. So yes, the demand is huge right now and it’s in all areas, not just pilots of airplanes but helicopters, drones, and also mechanics so we’re also working on the potential for a mechanic program for aviation.”
You can find more information about ILCC’s Aviation and Airport Management Programs at Iowalakes.edu.
