Making the Grade

What do you get when you combine experienced professional pilots with the pure joy of teaching? In the Canadian aviation industry, you get AeroCourse.

Founded in 1989, the advanced ground school provider welcomes about 650 pilots, both domestic and international, to its Airline Transport Pilot Licence (ATPL) and Instrument Flight Rating (IFR) programs each year. Countless professional aviators have either attended an AeroCourse ground school, or have studied for their exams using one of the company’s own manuals. 

It’s a legacy of knowledge that began with Peter Shewring, a former high school teacher-turned pilot from Victoria, B.C., who began flying in his early thirties. Despite a rewarding career as a B.C. government pilot, Shewring realized there was a way to combine his two professional loves – aviation and teaching. He began offering on-demand ATPL ground school courses in his spare time, enthusiastically toting heavy boxes of overhead transparencies and printed handouts to courses across Western Canada, from Victoria to Winnipeg, Man. 

It was during one of his trips to Winnipeg that he met Rick Stevens at Perimeter Aviation, a diverse operation incorporating a scheduled air service, a flight training school, charters and aircraft leasing. Stevens – who worked at Perimeter from 1982 to 1988 as the company’s chief pilot, marketing manager and training pilot – sat in on Shewring’s ATPL ground school, and realized the West Coast pilot had a good thing going. The course material prepared pilots for the airline transport licensing exam in a way that was unmatched by any other ground school provider of the day.

When Stevens moved on to fly for Canadian Regional Airlines (CRA), he found himself with time on his hands while he was on call. A pilot friend of his at Air Canada, Bill Curtis, was in a similar situation. The two of them decided to put their spare time to good use. Stevens thought of Shewring and his weekend ground school courses. 

“The way Peter [Shewring] worked was that if enough students called, he ran a course,” Stevens told Canadian Skies. “We wondered what would happen if we partnered with him, advertised the dates in advance, and moved into the Eastern Canadian market.”

Stevens and Curtis formed the company, came up with the AeroCourse name, and devised the marketing strategy. “Peter taught the first [ATPL] course at a Toronto hotel in early 1989,” Stevens remembered. “We couldn’t believe it! We had 25 people there, more than we had ever attracted at Perimeter. That showed us that the market in Toronto was there.”

Charting a Course

From that point on, business at AeroCourse really took off. The founders decided to schedule courses in cities across Canada, always renting classroom space from a local hotel. In the first year alone, Shewring taught eight ground schools. 

Business skyrocketed with the installation of a toll-free phone line. “It was a huge expense for us back then,” said Dianne Powell, Stevens’ partner and AeroCourse business manager. “Our phone bills were somewhere in the neighbourhood of $1,000 a month! But that spiked our business, because people could get in touch with us easily.”

As more and more ATPL candidates heard about AeroCourse and the good marks its students received on the Transport Canada exams, Shewring reached a point where he needed help. “He was teaching as many as 15 courses per year,” remembered Stevens. “Very few companies were doing ATPL courses here in Toronto at the time, and we were the only ones doing them out West; it was only Peter.”

By the fall of its first year in business, 1989, AeroCourse had also expanded into the IFR market. Stevens, who was a flight instructor as well as an airline pilot, began teaching those courses. Curtis handled administration behind the scenes, until the early 1990s when time commitments prevented him from staying involved. 

Soon, Stevens realized they needed more instructors. To keep travel costs down, staff were hired in key locations across the country. Shewring and Stevens had no trouble recruiting qualified candidates from their extensive list of aviation contacts. Today, there are 10 AeroCourse instructors located in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg and Toronto, each with 10 to 30 years of valuable industry experience. 

“I think the experience of our instructors sets us apart,” said Stevens. “All are working in the industry, with most flying large jet aircraft as commercial pilots, as well as instructing with us for 10-plus years. They stay to teach because they love it; they love passing on the information.”

As AeroCourse grew and gained a reputation for providing quality ground schools, corporations began to approach them for training. The company has taught a new hire meteorology course at Air Canada, trained British pilots on a reciprocal exchange with the former Skyservice Airlines, and provided courses at Canadian Forces Bases Bagotville, Trenton, Comox, Cold Lake and Greenwood. Over the years, AeroCourse has also been contracted to provide on-demand specialized courses, including IFR refresher, dispatching, crew resource management, and even a flight attendant course.

Said Powell: “We customize our programs and create new courses when somebody approaches us to do that type of specialized training. We can fill a niche; we have the expertise in a particular area, and companies look to us to provide it.”

AeroCourse has always operated as a home-based business. Stevens, who is now an Airbus A-320 captain, never wanted it any other way. “I didn’t want to own any equipment. I saw how hard it was to make any money in the aviation business, and this was always our fallback position in case anything ever happened in the industry,” he explained. “It was for the ‘what if.’ Now, it’s become something I’d still like to do during my retirement.”

Powell agreed. “We wanted a business that could handle the ups and downs of the flying world,” she said. “It was something we could do, and Rick didn’t have to do everything; and we could expand and contract as needed.”

In fact, AeroCourse has expanded steadily. After a rapid acceleration in the early years, business has increased by about 15 per cent since the year 2000, despite the turbulent years endured by the aviation industry after Sept. 11, 2001. 

Books and Beyond

The original AeroCourse toll-free phone line, still in operation today, has been supplemented by a company website. Along with obtaining course information, students may order AeroCourse publications, including the popular Canadian Airline Transport Pilot Licence Workbook, written by Shewring and Stevens, and the Canadian Instrument Rating Workbook, authored by Stevens. The workbooks are also sold at many aviation bookstores and a selection of Canadian flight schools. 

Several other book projects are underway at AeroCourse, including a private pilot’s introduction to meteorology (slated for publication in early 2013) and an accompanying online component, to be followed by an advanced version that is scheduled for release in 2014. The staff has also been working on a full IFR ground school manual to complement the existing workbook. 

Long past the days of overhead projectors and reams of paper handouts, modern-day AeroCourse instructors need little equipment. Each has a computer and a projector, and courses are taught via PowerPoint. There have been other changes over the years as well, all designed to keep course content fresh and relevant. “As the industry is changing, we have to think about how we can change our courses to be more appealing to our customers,” said Powell.

AeroCourse runs about 50 classes every year. The company’s current offerings include a three-day IFR course (24 hours of instruction plus an online pre-course component); a five-day full IFR course (sometimes taught in conjunction with staff at local flight schools); and a three-day ATPL course (24 hours with a pre-study component.)

A number of online courses have been developed to supplement in-class sessions. “We identified a number of years ago that three days isn’t long enough to teach the IFR course,” said Stevens. “So we developed a six-to-eight-hour online pre-course to help prepare students.”

However, he added that although online courses are helpful, they can never replace face-to-face training. “People like our courses because our instructors can use a scenario based on experience, and that’s extremely valuable in a learning environment. It sets everything in place. There are very few schools that can do that,” said Stevens.

Students agree. “I especially liked the background knowledge that you provided,” wrote a recent ATPL ground school student to his AeroCourse instructor. “Besides knowing the bare minimum for the exams, I want to get a more in-depth understanding of the material. I’m sure there are others like myself, so keep up with the stories!”

AeroCourse is currently the only coast-to-coast advanced pilot ground school provider, although regional providers do exist. Stevens and his instructors are dedicated to going the extra mile for their students. “It’s not about learning just enough to pass the exam,” said Stevens. “In this industry, that is absolutely wrong. Considering the end result is you’ll be flying an aircraft and won’t have all the information, it’s a scary thing.”

For this reason, the AeroCourse ATPL and IFR manuals each contain more than 500 questions, which are updated regularly to reflect regulatory changes, as well as student and instructor feedback. Students are even provided with a performance guarantee: pass the exam or take the course again for free. Only a handful of students have ever invoked that guarantee, and Stevens said it’s a good feeling to know that AeroCourse has helped so many pilots to pass their exams. 

Training for the Future

Stevens has advocated for mandatory ATPL and IFR ground schools for years. He said there is a big gap between the advanced training that is currently provided in Canada, and the demands of the job in real life. 

“Students don’t get the operational knowledge they need about how to do the job, or only very little of it,” he said. “We used to say the IFR is a licence to learn, but now it’s got to be beyond that. In the ATPL, a lot of the schools don’t cover enough on aircraft systems, radar, and advanced technologies. Very few schools are teaching flight management systems. So, all students are really capable of doing is flying an IFR approach at their home aerodrome. In my opinion, they’re not prepared for all the operational challenges or the diverse flying conditions you find in Canada. If you have experienced captains, then you can get away with that sort of thing; they can learn on the job. But when there is a lot of hiring going on, you get new captains with brand new first officers. That can be a problem.”

Industry has been shifting over recent years to close this training gap, with the advent of post-secondary pilot training programs that combine all licences and ratings with a college or university diploma. Stevens is convinced these programs are the way of the future, and AeroCourse has already begun collaborating with British Columbia Institute of Technology and Brampton Flight Centre on their college programs. They are also working with various companies, including Perimeter Aviation, to offer more intense ground schools. 

“I think the college courses have made us think of where we’re going to go in the future,” said Stevens. “I can see the number of flight schools shrinking, and more of these professional college programs increasing. You’ll still have schools doing the private [licence], but the professional programs will all be affiliated with post-secondary institutions.”

He explained that the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States is moving towards increasing the standards for pilots entering an air carrier operation, including requiring training and experience in multi-crew environments. Stevens believes Transport Canada may be considering similar changes. There is already a move toward offering “integrated ATPL” instruction, whereby candidates progress through all licences and ratings in an accelerated program that familiarizes them with commuter or airline operations, multi-crew environments and complex turbine aircraft. In many cases, integrated ATPL programs are offered in conjunction with colleges or universities.

In January 2012, Ontario’s Sheridan College announced a partnership with Brampton Flight Centre, whereby students would earn a four-year Bachelor of Applied Business in Global Business Management, while completing their commercial pilot’s licence at the same time. AeroCourse is involved with developing the integrated ATPL portion of the program. 

“A big part of this is you have to do multi-crew training in a sophisticated FTD [flight training device] which is basically a simulator without motion,” said Stevens. “We’re looking at the options that are available. We’re developing that whole program from the IFR to the advanced level from an operational point of view. They’ll know what it’s like to fly in a two-crew environment—that’s where the simulator comes in.”

He said that less than 10 Canadian schools currently offer an integrated ATPL. Stevens is excited about the program’s potential. “Our hope for this [Sheridan/Brampton] program is that it becomes a cadet program for airline recruitment. I think that no more than 10 years from now, everyone will be on an integrated ATPL program, or some form of this new multi-crew licence. This program will give students the knowledge they need to get out into the industry.”

A recent Boeing study concluded that almost 100,000 new commercial pilots will be needed in North America in the coming years. Those modern-day pilots will need to know more than just the bare minimum required to pass their exams. It’s a belief that has been at the core of AeroCourse since the company offered its first formal ATPL course 23 years ago. Advanced ground school pioneer Peter Shewring – who passed away in 2010, but who loved teaching bright young pilots right up to the very end – would have been very pleased to see the industry moving in this direction.