Two students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University are the first in the nation to complete a newly required course for the multiengine airplane airline transport pilot (ATP) certificate, the school announced Oct. 31.
Ethan Connor and Chien-Hsuan Hung, students at the university’s Daytona Beach, Florida, campus, completed the ATP certification training program (ATP CTP) that the FAA began requiring Aug. 1 before airplane multiengine ATP applicants may take the knowledge test. In an online resource about the new type of training, the FAA lists only five certificate holders authorized to conduct the ATP CTP, two of which are Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach and Prescott, Arizona, locations. Embry-Riddle’s was the first program to gain approval.
“There have been numerous changes to the requirements to obtain an Airline Transport Pilot’s Certificate over the past few years,” said Ken Byrnes, chair of the Embry-Riddle Daytona Beach Flight Department, in a media release. “The completion of our first ATP-CTP class is the culmination of all of these changes. We are pleased to provide all of the prerequisites for the ATP certificate as part of our normal Aeronautical Science degree requirements.”
The program is available only to full-time students and includes a minimum of 10 hours of flight time in the university’s simulators, including a Level D CRJ-200, full-motion, full-flight simulator, according to Embry-Riddle. Students who complete an FAA-approved aviation degree program from the school also are eligible for the new restricted ATP certificate, which permits pilots with academic degrees with an aviation major to qualify with fewer than 1,500 total hours. Both the ATP CTP course and restricted ATP certificate are included in the FAA’s final rule for pilot certification and qualification requirements for air carrier operations; AOPA’s briefing paper on the rule is available online.
Sarah Deener
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