General aviation’s advocacy groups are lobbying the House of Representatives, asking congressional members to oppose legislation that would make it harder for veterans to pursue aviation careers.
H.R. 3016, the Veterans Employment, Education, and Healthcare Improvement Act, would cap flight training tuition and fee benefits at $20,235, a move a Feb. 9 letter warns will “cause immediate and alarming changes to collegiate flight-training degree benefits for our nation’s military veterans.”
“There are great jobs in aviation and our nation’s veterans have earned a right to pursue those opportunities,” said Jim Coon, senior vice president of government affairs for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA). “By capping flight training benefits, this legislation would effectively put flying careers out of reach for many vets.”
Without a sizable, out-of-pocket investment, “a veteran would be unable to attain an aeronautical college degree with a commercial pilot license,” the GA groups wrote in the letter.
In addition to AOPA, the letter opposing H.R. 3016 was signed by the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA), Helicopter Association International (HAI), National Air Transportation Association (NATA), National Association of State Aviation Officials (NASAO), and National Business Aviation Association (NBAA).
I am sure even in every educational field, law school, med school, and others, there are financial aid recipients that misappropriate the money they receive. I would find it hard to believe that the recipients of VA funds are any worse than any other in this matter. I would actually bet that the average VA financial aid recipient manages his or her affairs better than the non VA recipient.
I did not see and such activities in our flight training environment, and being near Ft. Campbell, most of our students, were active Army. They were an excellent group of people to work with. We saw some tattoos, but never any indication of drug use. How much education money could one really blow on tattoos? I would think even for 20K, the average pilot would run out of skin area before they ran out of VA backed tattoo funds.
We operated a 141 flight school with VA benefits, we used older Cessna aircraft for flight training. My comments were aimed at how this bill could negatively impact the HONEST vets, and negatively impact the HONEST part 61 and 141 flight schools. We did not train with turbine powered aircraft either. However, sooner or later, some pilots have to get turbine aircraft training, so face it, they have be trained somewhere, by someone in a turbine, why not by a flight school?
I agree, there are plenty needs to tighten our belts in this country, but I disagree, in that education is the place to start cutting.
…it’s about time the tax payer had to quit funding 100% of the Veterans education bills. I noticed my tax dollar was paying not only for their entire education (which most only get C’s and D’s research showed ), but a healthy monthly allowance up to $2000 for being able to cope with life on life’s terms. Oh, and that included all the dope and tatoo’s they could get as well.Time to start tightening the belts in this country.
This is amazing, flight training costs have nearly tripled in the past 15 years, we are rapidly approaching a pilot shortage, and they want to cut benefits? A move like this is a double edge sword, it doesn’t just hurt the Vet, it hurts the industry by actually limiting its potential customer base. Costs will just go up even further if this passes. Lets impose more difficult compliance regs for manufacturers, raise the cost of flying and now, penalize the customer base. It would seem that the government is actually trying to kill GA.
We have been rapidly approaching a “pilot shortage” for 15 years if you were to believe flight school recruiters.
The bottom line is this was brought on by their own doing, flying R66’s and charging just an absurd amount for the base R22 and R44 for the programs is what got this shut down. ULA was the biggest and most careless, but GA wasn’t far behind.
Flight training used to cost a full time student under 100k when I went through on student loans. But it was okay to charge the VA kids 250k to get the same ratings? They are fighting this bill so hard because the cash cow they milked dry is about to die.
Education in general costs a ridiculous amount, not just aviation. No reason for it to cost $100 K to get a degree and commercial. GA is eating their young.