GI Bill Flight Training

Congress Proposes Drastic Cut to GI Bill Flight Training

February 1, 2016 by Scott Spangler

If you care about the aviation industry and the veterans, whose honorable service earned them GI Bill benefits that lead to the degrees leading to careers in it, you need to be aware of HR 3016. You may wonder what the VA Provider Equity Act, which would pay podiatrists the same at other physicians who work the Veterans Administration, and establish a new VA bureaucracy, has to do with veteran flight training benefits.

A lot.

Buried in HR 3016, introduced by Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), is a provision that would cut veteran flight training benefits by $882 million over the next decade. Making this disservice to our vets even worse is the discrimination it represents; veterans using their Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits to earn degrees in other disciplines do not face the cuts proposed for those pursuing aviation degrees.

Specifically, HR 3016 would cap VA flight training benefits at $20,235 a year, a total of $80,940 for a four-year degree program. As anyone already in aviation probably knows, the actual costs are much higher. With their higher operating costs, rotary-wing aircraft lead the way. According to a Helicopter Association International survey, a four-year degree for an employment ready commercial helo pilot with instrument instructor rating is approximately $212,500.

To further increase the student debt of veterans pursuing an aviation career, HR 3016 proposes that the VA no longer pay for training that leads to a private pilot certificate, the first step in a professional pilot degree program. Depending on where the students are going to school, and depending on what they are flying, this prerequisite will cost them $15,000 to $20,000.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, enactment of this legislation would deny 600 veterans a year from pursing the professional pilot degree programs that would launch their aviation careers. HR 3016 is scheduled for a vote in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, February 2. If, as expected, the House approves it, the legislation then goes to the Senate. This gives us two chances to contact our elected officials and let them know what we think of this discriminatory and unfair cut to benefits our vets have honorable earned. Scott Spangler, Editor

Pilots & Their Professional Standing

February 6, 2011 by Scott Spangler

A sure indication of age is the change in status of a profession once held in high regard. Embodied by the airline pilot, I’m talking about aviators who gets paid to transport people or cargo on a regular run. Once a respected and well-paid position, it is now approaching parity with the ubiquitous bus driver and over-the-road trucker.

Flying bus My point is to not cast aspersions on pilots of terrestrial transport; our lives and economy would suffer without their good work. It is more about the airborne profession transformed by its own success. Flying people and cargo has become so safe and reliable that it is no longer special. It is something that anyone can do with a training and practice.

What inspired this tangent of thought was an article in the Los Angeles Times, U of Ill. official says aviation program needs to be closed in cost-savings push. Closing the program would save the university $750K a year. According the U of I Institute of Aviation website, it has 300 students enrolled in its different programs. But that’s not what caught my eye. [Read more…] about Pilots & Their Professional Standing

New GI Bill has Wings…Maybe

January 22, 2011 by Scott Spangler

Earlier this month President Barack Obama signed the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 2010 into law. For the first time since Vietnam, it will cover flight training under non-degree educational programs.

Depending on the veteran’s eligibility, the new law authorizes up to $10,000 a year for flight training. But just because such payments are authorized doesn’t mean the allocated funds exist. Congress has to pass an appropriate bill for that, and it’s still working on the 2011 budget, which was due last October.

If Congress appropriates the money, it will be interesting to see how many vets pursue flight training. After World War II, learning to fly under the GI Bill led to the GA boom, which saw the number of airplanes delivered every year climb into the tens of thousands. But that boom peaked in the 1970s, when the Greatest Generation turned 50 and started looking at retirement.

Far fewer served during Vietnam, and given the unpopularity of that conflict, our GI Bill benefits were nowhere near those who served during World War II, or today. Still, regardless of the era, vets have to make a choice between recreation and a career.