Camarillo Flight School To Train Chinese Pilots

CAMARILLO (AP) — A Southern California flight school is capitalizing on the demand for pilots in China.

Channel Islands Aviation says it will train Chinese pilots in Ventura County then send them back home, where the new pilots would train Chinese nationals who want to fly their own small planes.

Sarah Oberman Bartush of Channel Islands Aviation said the partnership with Avieye General Aviation of Shanghai is unusual in that some U.S. flight schools have been training commercial airline pilots from China. This arrangement is for general aviation, not commercial.

Each year, about 20 Chinese would spend 10 months training at Camarillo Airport, where Channel Islands Aviation is based.

Bartush said the school had a similar program in the 1990s for Japanese nationals.