Flight training program at local college

HOUGHTON — Twenty students are taking part in a week long flight training program at Michigan Tech, one of the university’s Summer Youth Programs.

17 of the students are from South Korea with the remaining three from the United States. The students will get a chance to fly a real plane, but first they must master the simulator.

Civil Air Patrol Flight Instructor Kevin Cadeau said, “We’re teaching this class here on the flight simulator so they have a chance to actually see what all the instruments do and what speeds you need to use to take-off and land with, that sort of thing.

So then when they get in the real plane, they’re not going to be completely lost. They’ll have a good idea of what’s going to be going on and have a sense for how the plane’s going to handle by the motions they put into it.” As with many of the Summer Youth Programs the class can help prepare a student for a possible career.

16-year-old Robby Larson from Chicago said, “I’m working to be an aerospace engineer. I’m also looking to get my pilot’s license so I thought coming here and doing this kind of a course would be good for a pre-getting into an actual flight school.” On Friday, the students will head over to the Houghton County Memorial Airport where they can test their flying skills for the first time.