Big dreams take flight in small planes in Nogales
The airstrip at Nogales International Airport is a place of small planes and big dreams, where students from all over the world take to the sky.
Here at Tiffin Aviation Services (TAS) Flight School, a student can earn a commercial pilot’s license in six months to a year, said owner Larry Tiffin. Many of the students come from India, where aviation training could take a year and a half or longer. Others come from Japan, Germany, Mexico and the United States.
Currently, 24 foreign and 10 domestic students are enrolled in the school, he said.
Students study on the ground with a simulator for two weeks before Tiffin puts them in the pilot’s seat of a four-passenger Cessna 172, he said.
Rohit Bikel completed ground training in India before he arrived in Nogales, he said. On his first flight last July, Tiffin sat beside him and told him to fly the plane.
“If you want to be a good pilot, you have to trust your instructor,” Bikel said. “I prayed to God and I just did it.”
After the Indian students earn their wings, they’ll return to India to become first officers on the A-320 Airbus, Tiffin said.
“Getting an Indian pilot’s license is really difficult,” Bikel said.
He researched aviation schools in Australia, Canada and South Africa before choosing TAS, he said. The Nogales school offered good weather almost year-round and more than 200 hours of in-air instruction, a requirement to get a commercial pilot’s license in India.
Indian students must also earn a radio-telephone operator’s license and they can’t get it in the United States, Bikel said. He took his exam Nov. 7 in Ontario, Canada, and returned to Nogales to fly some more. Once he graduates and returns to India, he will face a grueling written exam and flying test.
The Indian students pay almost $40,000, including lodging and meals, for almost 250 hours of flying time, Tiffin said. For a local student, it costs about $31,000 to complete the 200 hours of in-air time for a U.S. commercial license. If a student wanted only a private pilot’s license, the cost is $5,000 for 40 hours of flying instruction.
Enrollment is open year-round, but Tiffin likes to start students in groups of four so they have study partners, he said. The students room together in motels in Nogales and Patagonia and a cab picks them up early in the morning.
16/11/07 Denise Holley/Nogales International, US