Pilots learn from trial, errors- Capt Abdulsalami

Capt Mohammed Abdulsalami is the Rector Nigerian College of Aviation Technology NCAT Zaria established over 50 years ago to train aviation personnel, but the college has witnessed growth and challenges. Abdulsalami speaks on the recent accreditation of the college by ICAO and constraints the college is grappling with, especially non -remittance of funds by clients. CHUKWUEMEKE IWELUNMO was at the briefing. Excerpts

NCAT was recently awarded the Regional Training Centre of Excellence (RTCE) by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). Do you have the capacity to retain this new status of the college?
One of the requirements before we were granted this new status by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is that you must meet some certain criteria.

This journey was started by NCAT 11 years ago, when we became a member of the TRAINER PLUS; and before you even become a member of this group, there are some criteria you have to meet, which included assessment of training facilities and personnel, the global aviation training office, sent auditors from ICAO to Zaria to come and assess all these things.

They came with their checklists and of course, typically, there were some gaps they noticed; and we were given time within which to close these gaps; and we were then re-assessed. It was determined then that we met the requirements to become a member of the TRAINER.

That requirement was for the institution to be able to develop some package, which we did in 2013 and in 2015, we started the process of getting this Regional Training Centre of Excellence (RTCE) and that one also involved a lot of things, including, but not limited to a lot of training packages.

At the time that NCAT signified its intention to go for its RTCE that was when the criteria were changed. Now, they needed the applicant to develop a minimum of three standard training packages.

So, NCAT had to develop three standard training packages and then trained an internal validator. For that training of internal validator, we had to develop another standard training package.

So, with that, NCAT was able to satisfy the requirements of being awarded the training centre of excellence status.

To answer your question, yes, we have the capacity, we have the plans also to increase that capacity because by being made the RTCE, it opens a lot of opportunities for NCAT;

we will need to improve as there are lots of requirements that we need to meet to keep this status. We have to keep increasing or improving on our facilities.

One of the things that we did to meet these criteria was to modernise our classrooms.

For those of you that have been to Zaria, if you go to our classrooms, you will realise that they have been standardised and modernised to ICAO standards, complete with projectors and interactive boards.

What we need to do in anticipation of increased demands for courses is for us to build more classrooms, office and hostel accommodations and all these in anticipation of these approvals we made allowances for in our 2017/2018 budgets.

So, we are fully ready to meet the challenges and opportunities of this new status that NCAT has.

Sir, what are the benefits of being a Regional Training Centre of Excellence to NCAT and Nigeria?
Being a RTCE, allowed the college to develop ICAO training programmes on all the Annexes.

We can develop training programmes in aerodrome, air transport, facilitation, environment, safety, security and several others. It opens a lot of windows of opportunities.

We can develop these programmes ourselves; and anytime someone in any part of the world that is interested and he’s part of the ICAO TRAINER PLUS, can utilise these programmes and NCAT get benefits because we get paid anytime somebody uses our training programmes.

Also, our instructors because they were trained and certified by ICAO, can be invited to go and conduct training in any part of the world.

My Deputy Rector has had opportunities in the past to go and conduct courses in Singapore and that goes to show the level of confidence that ICAO and global aviation industry have for NCAT and as you are aware,

for the last two years, NCAT has won the award for institution with the highest numbers of instructors trained in ICAO’s standards.

Incidentally, we are also the institution with the highest number of ICAO accredited courses in the world for two years running now.

In ICAO circles, NCAT is very well known. This RTCE that we have covers the flying school and the air traffic services and communication school. Those were the two schools that were subjected to that audit.

Even aviation management conducts ICAO’s approved courses for students. Some of the participants are foreigners from different countries, especially in Africa.

The college is made of five schools; and each of these schools runs their own programmes; and aviation management, especially has the highest numbers of programmes they run.

But, all our programmes are approved by either the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) or ICAO.

What will it cost NCAT to upgrade to the international standards you programme for it; and how soon can this be made possible?
We have a number of projects that we want to carry out at NCAT, but we cannot have all of them in one budget period.

So, for the 2017, we had provision to build additional classrooms and a 250-bed students hostel and also upgrade of existing classrooms. This is in addition to on-going projects.

Also, in our five-year development plans, we have made provision continuously for increase in these classrooms, office space and hostel accommodation.

For this year, we already had some of these projects appropriated, but as you know, releases have not been much. So, we have not started any new capital projects.

What are the plans of the management to upgrade the institutions to a degree awarding level?
Already, NCAT offers post-graduate diplomas in aviation management.

We have identified the need to have this; and every time we interacted with owners of airlines, we stressed the need for them to train people in aviation management because we have a lot of technical people who are involved in running operations of airlines and administrative functions, but they lack the proper training in aviation management.

We are already conducting these courses and we hope to introduce additional courses in the near future.

We are also talking to other educational institutions so that we can collaborate with some of the universities and other institutions both in Nigeria and outside the country.

Most of the aircraft you use for training are Tampico engines, how do you source for their fuel especially when they don’t use Jet A1?
The availability and the cost of Aviation Gas (AVGAS) has been a challenge for any operator of piston engine aircraft.

That was why a decision was taken by the NCAT management long before I came to replace our Tampico aircraft to the Diamond aircraft that uses Jet A1.

We have already taken delivery of one Diamond 42 aircraft and Diamond 40 and we have more on order.

The process is slow because of budgetary allocation releases, but even today, we discussed this with the Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, the Chairman, House Committee on Aviation;

and she agreed that there is need for us to have increased allocation so that we can bring in more of these instead of getting just one aircraft at a time.

If we are able to re-fleet within the shortest possible time, then, we will not be facing this problem of availability and cost of AVGAS.

We just took delivery of consignment of AVGAS last week; and we have enough stock to last us for quite a while.

Why has it been so difficult to change the entire trainee aircraft in your fleet to modern one as anticipated by your management; and how many of the new aircraft do you have plans to acquire?
As for the aircraft, when the contract was awarded, it was for 20 aircraft; five DA45, which has multiple engines and 15 DA40 single aircraft.

As at the time of award, the exchange rate I believe was about N155 to $1, but right now, the exchange rate is over N300; the cost of the contract has doubled in naira terms because the money is given to us in naira.

In dollar term is the same, but in naira term, the project has doubled. Aircraft manufacturers do not start manufacturing process until you deposit money;

and 2016 was particularly difficult in this country because of recession and non-releases of money for projects. That was why we were only able to get just one aircraft.

So, this year, we had wanted to bring additional aircraft, we decided we wanted the single engine DA40 aircraft, but the manufacturer told us that they were relocating the production line from Austria to Canada and that they will not be able to resume production for at least six to seven months.

They also told us that rather than order one or two aircraft, which is based on budgetary approval, it would be more cost effective to increase the number as it would reduce the cost of transportation for us as the aircraft would be shipped in container and assembled in Zaria.

Based on that, we decided that we will not bring in anything and next year, we will make provision to bring in a larger number of aircraft so that we can immediately start phasing out the older aircraft. In all, we are looking at minimum of five net year or even 10 aircraft.

Why has it been difficult for NCAT to carry out type-rating training in the college, rather than students travelling abroad for this?
Pilots are to have type-rating before they can start to fly any aircraft. When you come out of school, you are typed on the kind of aircraft that is being used in the school and you are licensed.

When you get a job, your employer will now give you a type-rating on the type of aircraft that they are operating.

NCAT cannot provide type-rating for all the aircraft in Nigeria, what the management of NCAT did some few years back was to identify the commonly used aircraft in Nigeria, which is the Boeing 737 and decided to purchase the B737 simulator that would be installed in Zaria.

This simulator project was also affected by the foreign exchange issue because, it was also a dollar denominated project.

So, the cost has doubled, but I’m glad to inform you that NCAT has made substantial payment on this project and work is about to commence on the building that is going to house the simulator.

We had wanted to use an existing building that is housing the current simulator that we have, but the CAE, the manufacturer of the simulator told us that the building needs to be modified to be able to accommodate the simulator.

They said that the building is too small and when we assessed it, we decided that rather than go through the trouble of modifying an existing building, it is better for us to build a new structure.

We have gone far and by God’s grace, we will start work on that and we hope that by the middle of next year, the simulator would start its journey from Canada to Nigeria. The simulator has already been built, it’s been warehouse.

We are yet to complete the payment, but we have made substantial payment to the tune of about 70 per cent. Very soon, we will have the simulator installed in to NCAT, Zaria;

and when we do that, we will be offering Boeing 737 type-rating and recurrent training for pilots, which is a huge drain on foreign exchange on the local airlines.

As you know, the pilots have to go for recurrent training every six months. So, we hope to capture that market and start having that training done in Zaria.

When the national carrier project takes off in this country, we hope to partner the national carrier should they be operating Boeing series of aircraft, then, we have a ready facility that we can use to train;

and we also have made provisions in the building for expansion to take additional simulators. What we have now is a facility that can take four simulators.

The manufacturers told us that they will not ship the simulator until the building is ready, because they don’t want to send it only for the facility to sit in containers.

So, we have asked the contractors to expedite work on the project. The only thing that will delay the project is release of funds, but it is our firm belief that this project will see the light of the day before the end of 2018.

It will take at least six months to build the facility.

What are the major challenges confronting NCAT apart from the issue of funds?
You said you don’t want me to talk about funds as one of our challenges, because that is what everybody talks about. But, the fact is that you can’t run away from funds.

As you know we are a government agency, most of our courses are subsidised by the government to make aviation training affordable and reachable by the ordinary Nigerian. So, we get part-funding from the government.

We also run on our Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), which is made up of the seven per cent of the five per cent of the Passenger Service Charge (PSC), which we get from NCAA and then whatever we are able to generate from school fees.

One of the challenges we have is that a lot of government agencies are not even aware of our existence, they don’t know what we offer, so, you find them sending students abroad to go and do courses that are run in Zaria at about four to five times what it costs to do the same courses here.

I can tell you for a fact that right now and virtually on a weekly basis, we get an application from a student who started his or her flight training abroad;

and they return to Nigeria because they could not continue because of lack of funds; and they want to come back to us to complete that training.

If there is increased patronage from our agencies or organisations, that would greatly improve our IGR; and NCAT will be better positioned to carry out its programmes without relying heavily on the government. One day, we may even be able to declare a profit.

This actually was highlighted at the conference in Sokoto State on National Policy on Transportation. Government agencies were told to patronise NCAT.

Apart from the classrooms and the hostels that we are building, we need an additional infrastructure; and it still has to do with money, because we have a ceiling on our budgets here.

That limits the number of projects that we can carry out. As you know, we have National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) accredited courses.

We do Ordinary National Diploma (OND) and Higher National Diploma (HND) programmes in engineering.

We are in the process of establishing and equipping laboratory for this. All these are parts of the things we are doing to expand the capacities of NCAT.

Things can go faster than the way we are now if funds are made available. We are just taking things one at a time, subject to availability of funds.

What is NCAT doing to address the huge number of unemployed pilots in Nigeria?
This is a subject that is very dear to me because I get a call from someone who want his pilot employed. Some are even reluctant to train as a pilot at the moment because of lack of jobs for them after graduation.

As you know, we have about 300 unemployed young pilots in the market; and the airlines are reluctant to employ and train them because they claim when you train some of them, they run away.

This is an issue that the Ministry of Transport is discussing with Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) because the association brought the issue to the ministry and it’s receiving government attention.

But, NCAT cannot get involved in seeking jobs for its graduates, we are a training organisation, we can train people, we can give references when you finish training, but we cannot involve in getting jobs for our graduates.

I keep saying that our young pilots need to get more involve in General Aviation (GA).

The practice worldwide is that when you graduate from a flying school like Zaria with about 250 to 300 hours of flight aircraft, you go into GA; some of them actually stay to become instructors in flying schools to build hours and gain experience.

That was how I started. Some of them go into GA and fly light and medium aircraft and gain experience before they eventually qualified to go for Airline Transport Pilot Licenses (ATPL) before they now join commercial airlines.

This is the practise in the United States and elsewhere, but unfortunately for us here, every pilot that comes out wants to go and fly a big passenger jet with cabin crew, but the airlines cannot employ everybody.

Training an inexperience pilots when you are carrying over 100 passengers is not ideal. Pilots learn from trial and errors, you allow him to make some mistakes as far as the safety of the aircraft is not compromised, you allow him to make mistakes,

but when you now have over 100 passengers sitting inside an aircraft, you will not want a trainee pilot to make mistakes otherwise, those passengers will never fly with such an airline again. It is not the ideal training environment; and it is expensive to do.

We need to improve our GA to absorb most of the inexperience pilots. I you count the number of private jets that we have in Nigeria, if they can employ a least one that will create jobs for pilots.

GA is a very good training ground for them. When they gain the experience, they can join passenger airlines.

The creation of a national carrier will also create employment opportunities for these young men, because a lot of experience pilots once the national carrier is coming,

they will leave where they are and the indigenous airlines will have no any other choice than to employ these people. National carrier is actually a catalyst for the growth for our country.