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Crews perform a safety inspection on a helicopter at a parking apron of theprivate flight training company Ruohang Transportation Development Co inNanjing, capital of Jiangsu province. Provided to China Daily
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A pilot with Ruohang Transportation Development Co flies a helicopter.
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Students learn about the interior of a helicopter at Ruohang.
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A mechanic performs maintenance on a helicopter.
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A mechanic works on a helicopter propeller in a hangar atRuohang.
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An instructor gives a student a lesson about flying a helicopter.
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Lu Yong, chairman of Ruohang Transportation Development Co, said he is confident theaviation industry will continue to expand in China despite obstacles that obstruct its path.
His general aviation company has been operating in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, sinceAugust.
In less than two months, about 40 people have applied to receive flight training there.
"The advanced economy in the Yangtze River Delta, which includes Shanghai, as well asJiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, provided the original impetus for setting up the company inNanjing," Lu said.
When Chinese people think about what sort of person is likely to try to obtain a pilot's licenseand an aircraft, many of them picture an ostentatious and successful businessman. Lu said thereality is vastly different.
"People's main reason for obtaining a license at our flight school is to find a well-paying job atan airline or in private aviation, although we have enrolled some successful business peoplewho fly just as a hobby."
To obtain a private license to fly a helicopter in China, would-be pilots must undergo 40 hoursof training and pay about 250,000 yuan ($39,600). If they then want to go farther and get alicense for commercial purposes, they must submit to another 110 hours of instruction.
"It's expensive for many people," Lu said. "The cost can be greater than 5,000 yuan an hour."
Also driving the price up are rules limiting when aircraft can fly in China, Lu said.
"In the United States, a general aviation aircraft flies between 600 and 800 hours a year onaverage," Lu said. "In China, it's only 100 hours. Since aircrafts are used less often here, thecost of using them for an hour is much higher."
Only about 1,000 people in China now have a license to fly a helicopter. In Nanjing, a city of 8million, the number of people with a private flying license is a mere five.
And even those who can afford the necessary training have slim chances of obtaining a licenseif their health is not good.
On a recent day, four people registered to study in Ruohang's flight school. But only two ofthem passed a mandatory health examination.
"To guarantee the safety of flyers and passengers, strict health checks must be carried out,"Lu said.
More than 10 general aviation companies now offer the type of training people must undergo ifthey want to obtain a private flying license in China. Of those, half are qualified to provide thetraining needed for a commercial license.
Entrepreneurs seem to think the demand for those services will only increase. More than 100companies are waiting for China's aviation management departments to approve their requeststo enter the general aviation market.
In 2010, a Shanghai general aviation company opened flight schools near Qiandao Lake inZhejiang province. As a special service, it said it would even take its training sessions to thehomes of businessmen who lead hectic lives.
Huaxi village in Jiangyin, a city in Jiangsu province, established a general aviation company inJuly. The business has since spent more than 100 million yuan to purchase two helicopters andconstruct a general aviation airport.
Another flight school has also been opened in Huai'an, a Jiangsu province city that is about200 kilometers away from Nanjing.
Lu said the industry will not see much fierce competition in the next three to five years, eventhough many companies have swarmed into it.
"China's general aviation industry is in its initial stage. Every company is in charge of a regionand no one has acquired a large market share."
People who want to fly in Chinese airspace and have a pilot's license and an aircraft have onlystarted on their way to their goal. To reach it, they also must obtain a document certifying thesafety of the particular vehicle they plan to fly and similar documents.
They also must obtain an approval of their flight routes.
The requirements are cumbersome, so much so that some people don't bother with trying tocomply with them.
"As far as I know, there are as many unregistered general aviation aircrafts as there areregistered ones in the Yangtze River Delta," Lu said.
The Shanghai-based magazine Xinmin Weekly has reported that billionaires had started to flyin Zhejiang province as early as 2010 without certificates.
Zhu Songbin, a Zhejiang millionaire who owns 10 aircrafts, is among the many people who don'thave the certificates they need to fly but do it anyway.
"Spending 2 million yuan to buy an aircraft means nothing to many businesspeople, but theapproval process is too much of an annoyance," said Zhu. "It's no longer a secret in theindustry that people fly without licenses."
Also perhaps making people more willing to break the rules are the relatively meager penaltiesthat are imposed on those who fly without licenses.
According to China's Civil Aviation Law, violators of the certificate requirements face fines ofbetween 10,000 and 100,000 yuan.
Unlike Zhu, many wealthy people in China generally have little interest in purchasing their ownaircraft and pilot's licenses.
Lu said there are only about 600 registered general aviation aircraft in China. He said thegeneral aviation industry remains stunted despite the country's rapid economic growth.
Gao Yuanyang, director of the research center for the general aviation industry under theBeijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said China needs at least three to five yearsto prepare itself for the industry's rapid development.
"The industry is connected very closely with policies and technologies," Gao said. "What Chinalacks now is not capital but airspace, talent and infrastructure resources."
A large part of Chinese airspace is closed to civil traffic.
Lu cited three obstacles to the industry's development.
"People in China are not used to traveling by general aviation," Lu said. "That's just not part ofthe culture here. Besides that, there is very little supportive infrastructure, including generalaviation airports and maintenance centers, in the country."
He said requirements stipulate that aircraft be checked both before taking off and after landing.The country now lacks the operations it needs to fuel, inspect and repair aircraft.
"The US has more than 500 airports for civil aviation and 5,000 for general aviation, but Chinaonly has 200 for civil purposes and fewer than 100 for general use."
"The airspace management authorities should also move faster to open up low-altitude space,which is extremely important to the development of China's general aviation industry," Lu said.
He said too many departments in both the government and the army are trying to guide thereforms.
In 2010, the country announced plans to have low-altitude airspace opened to the industry by2015. And an administrative regulation concerning general aviation was put forward in 2003.
"But the regulation, which is under revision now, is no longer applicable," Lu said. "Thecountry's national aviation law is still under consideration. Cooperation and compromise musttake place if they want to make any progress."
Lu said his company may look at making general aviation aircraft. His company's business nowconcerns first aid, air tourism and aviation leasing.
He said the number of civil helicopters in China will increase by 25 percent a year in the nextfive years. By 2020, there will be 2,100 of the vehicles in the country.
"China's general aviation industry now has about 4 billion yuan in profits a year, which is lessthan 1 percent of the US industry's. China's general aviation industry needs to improve in manyways. If investors want to enter this industry, they should be patient and give up theirexpectation that they will be making profits in several years."
"The industry has some big opportunities as well as some big obstacles," said Lu. "If theimpediments can be removed, a bright future awaits all of these ambitious companies."
The kids are excited to flood into the classroom and get to work. That’s because they are building cool stuff like robots and airplanes. They’re learning how to represent their concepts in three-dimensional drawings, how to translate those ideas to a computer program and eventually build their projects in a fabrication lab much like the process of a typical engineer.
“It’s unbelievable,” Garmin said. “A lot of kids are coming in an hour early to take this class just because they want to. Some are taking seven periods just so they can take this class.”
The high schools have offered robotics classes for several years, but for two years the middle schools in Palos Verdes Peninsula School District have offered classes through a curriculum it labels STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math).
In the seventh grade program students learn an introduction to robotics and computer design while in the eighth-grade program they study the science of flight and actually build things.
The middle school program was made possible through a $60,000 grant from Honda Motor Company and the Palos Verdes Peninsula Education Foundation. But the eighth-grade program lacked facilities to build their projects.
Torrance-based Robinson Helicopter Co. donated $15,000 each to Palos Verdes and Torrance school districts. In PV the funds went toward building fabrication labs at each of three area middle schools. Large 8-by-4-foot work benches allow students a safe workplace to construct anything from gliders to rockets and even small helicopters.
“It’s something we’ve been looking at for a while as a way to give back to the community,” said President Kurt Robinson. “The development of engineering and math in the school systems in our local community is important to us. We felt it was a way to directly help the community, but hopefully in the long run it helps us.”
Robinson Helicopter employs 1,300 people at its Torrance manufacturing headquarters adjacent to the Torrance Airport. The 600,000 square-foot facility produces roughly 500 helicopters per year.
According to standardized test scores, United States students are falling behind in science and technology, which makes hands-on learning opportunities like the ones offered at PV middle schools so valuable.
“This is the cure for that illness,” Garmin said, who described how it takes a little time, but eventually students are empowered to be able to effectively convey their design concepts and eventually build something from scratch.
“When they first start doing it they are frustrated,” Garmin said. “After a day or two of them trying it, they get it and can become so empowered that they can communicate their ideas by drawing them out like this in such a way that people will automatically recognize them. There’s nothing more frustrating then trying to explain something to someone and they can’t understand what you’re drawing.”
For the teachers, including Campbell Nimick at Miraleste and Paul Woodward at Ridgecrest who head the STEM programs at their schools, it’s been a rewarding challenge.
Garmin said he’ll often run into a fellow teacher at Home Depot or a local electronics store over the weekend buying things for their classes.
“This is so far above and beyond what you normally do in your teaching,” Garmin said. ER
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