Bombardier Test Pilots To Train at ITPS Canada

Bombardier’s upcoming test pilots will train at International Test Pilots School (ITPS) Canada, becoming the second OEM’s flight-test professionals to make the most of the provider’s Hybrid Industry Training Solutions (HITS) program. Billed by ITPS Canada as a “flexible hybrid format,” the program kicked off in March with launch customer Honeywell Aerospace, aiming to offer a versatile and cost-effective solution. Bombardier’s first students are already enrolled in the course that typically takes around 18 to 24 months to complete.

TPS is already seeing “measurable impact” from the program’s flexibility, designed to support OEMs in sponsoring employees to become professional flight-test pilots and engineers. “The organizations don’t want to lose them, in some cases for up to an entire year, to do this highly technical training,” ITPS Canada CEO Dave Lohse told AIN.

Hybrid Format Embraces Flexibility

Instead, a combination of “synchronous and asynchronous online learning modules, run by the same instructors that teach [ITPS’] full-time professional courses,” will allow students to ramp up or down their weekly contribution. This is augmented by two in-person fortnight-long modules conducted in London, Ontario, where competency-based skills sessions consolidate online learning.

“These in-person modules can be synchronized between OEMs to create a syndicate environment in London: not only are students learning from highly experienced instructors; they’re also learning from each other,” he explained.

Students, including Bombardier’s, will then undertake a final project at their home facility. “The beauty of this is that the managers of the flight-test organizations curate and tailor that final project to be closely aligned with what they’re likely going to do once they finish the course,” continued Lohse. When not dedicated to training, candidates can still be “contributing actively to the facility that they work for.”

Lohse believes that the hybrid solution provides “an excellent recruitment and retention tool for OEMs,” especially for aspiring flight test professionals with a civil aviation background who perhaps haven’t had the opportunities military students have. Looking to the future, he explained that ITPS Canada is currently engaged with other “large household-name” U.S. OEMs, alongside gearing up to provide the HITS course to the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau.

Amidst an increasingly uncertain geopolitical environment, “a lot of countries are looking for Canada to step up as a reliable, trustworthy and strategic long-term partner,” Lohse concluded, citing the current climate as a “generational opportunity for the Canadian aerospace industry.”