FAIRMONT — No matter the age of the pilot or the scale of the machine, flying is flying.
A budding group of pilots and aviation engineers from middle schools and high schools across West Virginia and Ohio gave loft to that notion a couple years back during a drone aircraft competition in Fairmont.
They whooped and yelled as they sent the miniature, lighter-than-air machines through a course that included mazes, tricky-to-negotiate archways and even a ping pong ball challenge.
It was an event designed to showcase north-central West Virginia’s burgeoning avionics industry.
On April 11, Pierpont Community and Technical College is hosting another gathering centered around that field — only with normal-sized aircraft this time.
The Aviation Career Fair will run from 9 a.m.-noon that day at the National Aerospace Center, which is located at 1050 Industrial Road E. in Bridgeport, Harrison County.
Pratt & Whitney, Aurora Flight Sciences and KCI Aviation will be among the companies taxiing in for the morning.
Other employers representing the region’s opportunities in manufacturing, oil and gas will also be there.
Adding altitude to the airplane effort is that $25 million budget allocation from the state Legislature last year which is being used to construct an aviation maintenance training facility at the North Central West Virginia Airport, also in Harrison County.
The planned 70,000 square-foot structure will enable the college to increase enrollment in its aviation tech program from its current roster of 130 students to 200, officials said.
Two new “high-bay” hangers, which have loftier ceilings for better accommodations of larger aircraft, are included in the design.
Other high-tech labs dedicated to engine and turbine repair, flight-control studies and hydraulic systems will be housed at the facility, as well, the college said.
Brad Gilbert, who directs Pierpont’s aviation program, predicts nothing but clear skies — both for the courses he helps oversee and the facility under which several of the offerings will be housed.
“The new building and increased capacity will allow Pierpoint to better serve the economic interests of the aviation companies in north-central West Virginia,” the director said.
Meanwhile, Pierpont President Milan Hayward says the aviation program at his school has always had a clear runway to a quick career in the workforce — and the livable wage that goes with it.
“As the state’s aviation industry grows, this new state-of-the-art facility allows Pierpont to provide even more highly skilled graduates,” he said.
Graduates “who can enter the workforce immediately,” the president added.
Todd Ensign agreed.
Ensign is a professor at Fairmont State University, Pierpont’s sister institution. He’s also a program manager at the NASA IV&V facility nearby in the I-79 Technology Park in South Fairmont.
“You don’t have to leave the area for training if you want to work in the industry,” he said. “It’s all right here.”
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