A7

By Alan Cochrane, CanadaEast News Service

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Student pilots earning their wings in New Brunswick may want to start taking an overnight bag along with them on training flights in case they get stranded by bad weather.

A group of student pilots from the Moncton Flight College got a lesson in New Brunswick's unpredictable weather as heavy clouds forced them down at the Edmundston Regional Airport in St. Leonard Thursday night. They had to spend the night in a nearby hotel waiting for the weather to clear, so they could return to their home base in Fredericton.

Mike Doiron, principal and CEO of the college, said two Diamond Eclipse trainers from the Fredericton campus, piloted by students from China, were on a night cross-country flight when they ran into bad weather and were unable to finish the trip. Doiron said the college has strict regulations for training flights. One of them is that they must have a clear ceiling of 5,000 feet, as opposed to rules for private planes which have an operational ceiling of 1,000 feet.

"If the weather is the least bit iffy, they don't go at all," Doiron said.

Night cross-country flights are common and necessary for student pilots to get flying hours toward their licence. The Moncton Flight College operates campuses out of Fredericton and Moncton and the Diamond trainers, with their distinctive wide wings and two-seat cockpit, are a familiar sight in the skies above both communities.

Usually, the night cross-country flights take anywhere from two to six hours and often involve two planes flying together. The flight plans may vary depending on weather and other conditions, but usually include fuel stops at smaller airports along the way. On the Thursday night flight, the students left Fredericton and flew northwest to the Grand Falls area. Near the end of the trip, they ran into bad weather that prevented them making it back to Fredericton, so they returned to the small airport in St. Leonard. However, the airport was closed for the night and there was no one there to help them. The students ended up calling 911. RCMP responded to the call and offered the young pilots a drive to a nearby hotel.

Doiron said there were no damages or injuries and the pilots simply had to wait for the weather to clear before making the trip back to Fredericton.

The Moncton Flight College has dormitories in both Fredericton and Moncton and has been in the process of training large groups of student pilots from China, many of whom have jobs with airlines waiting for them when they graduate.

Ironically, one of the main reasons the college is so popular with international students is the wide variety of weather the students get to experience in the run of a year, which helps them prepare for jobs all over the world.