Europrean Pilot Training in Daytona

<–!As posted in Daytona Beach NewsJournal –>

By JOE CREWS

BUSINESS WRITER

The young Norwegian women sit side-by-side in the flight simulator. Kristin Klette, 21, performs first-officer duties as Annette Eriksen, 22, “pilots” the aircraft down the runway and around the realistic-looking airfield for several minutes before bringing it in for a landing.

norwegian students in daytona

The two women are among about 100 flight students from Norway who are training at Phoenix East Aviation in Daytona Beach to become airline pilots. The group arrived in October and should receive certification in October 2010, Eriksen said.

“We like the weather here,” Klette said. “It was like, minus 10 degrees in Norway” when they went home for the holidays.

During their extended stay in this area, Eriksen and Klette are renting an apartment in Port Orange. Like the others from their homeland, they’re buying groceries, paying for entertainment and generally giving a boost to the local economy.

Ghassan Reslan, chief executive of Phoenix East, said this is the fifth or sixth year the school has brought students here from Norway. About 20 students from Belgium and 150 or so from other nations are training alongside the Norwegians.

Students who complete the courses get certified by the Federal Aviation Administration, Reslan said. European students can convert the FAA certification into a similar certification from the Joint Aviation Authority, which was created in the early 1990s to unify aviation-related regulations within the European Union. Eriksen, Klette and their fellow countrymen are here under a partnership with a JAA flight school in Oslo, Norway, Reslan said.

For more info on the program, check out Phoenix East Aviation