Paying it forward

Growing new talent in the aviation industry

There are few industries that offer the breadth of opportunity that aviation does and this should be working in our favour to encourage a continual stream of young people to refresh, renew and invigorate the industry.

Encouraging young people to enter aviation as a career is a responsibility borne by every existing commercial pilot and business owner. After all, if there are no young people coming through, who is going to facilitate the old codgers’ retirement plans and exit strategies? But is the Australian industry doing enough, other than trying desperately to remove red tape and the dead hand of government over-regulation? Following the EAA Twitter feed during the recent Oshkosh week, it was clear that the US certainly has a plan to keep a ‘buzz’ in aviation and it has been doing it successfully for decades. Of course, big numbers make it easier in many ways, but there also seems to be a stronger commitment to ‘paying it forward’.