No train No Gain

Pilot training in the spotlight as government re-opens the door to foreign pilots

For more than a decade, a team of aviation professionals with strong airline and training backgrounds has been attempting to establish the Australia Asia Flight Training School at Glen Innes Airport, a small airfield in the NSW Northern Tablelands. Consultant Neil Hansford was part of this team.

The little-used airport, located within new Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Barnaby Joyce’s electorate of New England, would have been home to a residential college for 600 trainees and all the facilities needed for ab initio training or type conversions for Airbus and Boeing aircraft.