The air fleet, which the Institute of Aerospace Engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Brno University of Technology is proud of, has grown with a new piece, the Piper aircraft. The school also acquired it with regard to the growing interest in studying the Professional Pilot program, whose graduates can work as pilots for airlines in the Czech Republic and Europe. The study also includes practical training, for which BUT aircraft are used.

"The condition of our studies to become a professional pilot is that the student must obtain a basic private pilot license by the beginning of the second year. The students need to arrange the practical training for themselves. They can freely take advantage of the offer of several private flight schools, but also the BUT Flight School, which has expanded its services to guarantee, quality and timely obtain the license that this sixty-hour training requires," says Jaroslav Juračka, Director of the Institute of Aerospace Engineering.

This year, nine out of twenty first-year students decided to be trained under the auspices of BUT. These are numbers that they were not used to at school until recently. "We used to have about five to seven students per year studying to become a pilot. Over the last three years, interest has grown significantly to today's twenty young people who start studying every year," says Juračka, adding that interest in the field is growing despite the considerable costs of the compulsory training – a basic license can cost over a quarter of a million CZK, depending on the flight school chosen. Students invest in training with the vision that their spending will soon return after graduation thanks to generous salaries offered by the airline companies.

With the growing interest in studying, the pressure on the existing fleet of BUT aircraft has also increased. "We conducted the training on two Cessna 172s. But of course, the aircraft are not always available, they have to be flown regularly for service, and sometimes the weather is not suitable or our graduates come back to us and demand refresh flying. In parallel, in addition to private pilot training, we also have follow-up training, such as night flights or instrument flights. So, the planes were quite busy. That is why we concluded that we would buy more aircraft," explains Juračka.

The fact that the school last bought an aircraft in 2012 proves that this is not a completely common thing, also because the price of an older craft made in 2001 was six million crowns. "We chose the Piper 28-181 aircraft. It is a low-wing four-seater aircraft, with a 180 hp engine, allowing flights without visibility of the ground, i.e. flights in the clouds with the help of instruments. The aircraft is currently being run-in and the students are gradually getting retrained for flying it," says Juračka.

Piper will have its home airport in Křižanov, as well as other BUT planes. "Many people will probably immediately ask why we do not use the nearby Medlánky Airport. For us, Křižanov has the advantage of not being limited by the airspace of Brno Airport, which is especially important for the training of novice pilots. On the other hand, when we need to fly in the controlled areas of a large airport, it is about twelve minutes by air to Brno," adds Juračka. And he shares the latest news. "This year, the institute has made it possible for students of the Professional Pilot program to fly so-called observer flights on board a Boeing 737, thanks to cooperation with Smartwings," he concludes.