The fleet is being readied for flight training at Leading Edge Aviation
+VIDEO Leading Edge Aviation, based at London Oxford Airport, has restarted flight training for student pilots after weeks of lockdown.
The Approved Training Organisation (ATO) has been continuing to teach theoretical knowledge through virtual classrooms using video links but had to suspend all flight training.
But now, Leading Edge has CAA approval of its safe flight training programme. It also supports the government’s updates to social distancing and keeps staff and students safe.
Andy McFarlane, CEO of Leading Edge Aviation said, “We’ve not taken this decision lightly and have spent a great deal of time ensuring that we can manage this process.
“The wellbeing of our staff and students is always at the forefront of everything we do, and we’ll continue to monitor the situation closely.
“We have an agile team and safe effective working practices, so are ready to make whatever changes are necessary at any point in the process.”
New working practices for resuming flight training cover all areas of academy life such as student accommodation, academy space and resources, aircraft and teams.
Students will work in small ‘student family groups’ based on who they are accommodated with and their training phase.
“We’ve re-arranged the academy so they can safely carry out their flight training, only within these groups with an assigned Flight Instructor, only coming to the academy when they are scheduled to fly.
“This will ensure that the number of people they are in contact with is strictly limited, but they still have a strong support network surrounding them.
“We’ve also put a great deal of thought into how they will use the academy space, our simulator and our aircraft.
“We’re introducing deep cleaning regimes and have introduced new refreshment facilities for each ‘student family’. There’s no area of academy life that we’ve not considered. We’re even introducing a temperature check for everyone arriving at the academy, every day.
“The programme will of course be different from our pre-Covid-19 programme, and we’ll continue to focus on safety, but importantly, our students will be back in the air and progressing their Commercial Pilots Licence.”
