Bowling Green State University’s aviation program will be featuring new partnerships and facilities in the coming year.
Dr. Venu Dasigi, Dean of the college of Technology, Architecture, and Applied Engineering at BGSU, said that changes being made include a partnership with North Star Aviation (NSA), a private company based in Mankato, Minn.
NSA will operate the aviation training department under the title Bowling Green Flight Center.
“They are actually creating two new complexes—an instructional building and a hangar,” Dr. Dasigi said. “We’re very excited about it.”
NSA will provide services like maintaining planes and equipment upgrades at no extra cost to students.
“Now, with the partnership with North Star, we are in a position to expand the program as needed,” Dr. Dasigi said.
Christine Doering, marketing manager for BGSU Aviation, said that the project will also be adding another classroom and a “Redbird,” a full-motion flight simulator.
“You’ll actually move as you would in a plane,” Doering said. “If you bank to the right, you will actually bank to the right.”
The aviation school broke ground for the new facilities in June. According to Dr. Dasigi, construction should be completed by end of this year.
Last spring, the aviation school also announced a partnership with the University of Toledo to offer flight instruction for students in Asia, including China’s Northwestern Polytechnical University, Shenzen Campus.
“Students from there will be receiving flight instruction from this combined program we have with UT,” Dr. Dasigi said.
Students from China will begin the program at the UT campus, where they will earn an Associate Degree, then work toward a Bachelor of Science degree while receiving flight instruction at BGSU.
Doering said that BGSU has offered an aviation program since 1978, and about 120 students are currently in the program.
BGSU offers Bachelor of Science degrees in Flight Technology and Operations, as well as Aviation Management and Operations.
“With Flight Operations, students can go into corporate or commercial flying, owning their own planes, and there are quite a few aviation options like working for UPS or FedEx,” Doering said.
“For management, they can be an airport manager, or go into corporate management. There are different avenues they can take.”
Doering added that the new buildings being constructed will be associated with the Flight Operations program, primarily.
Dr. Dasigi said that while BGSU is not the only aviation program in the region, its facilities make it stand out above others.
“We’re one of two programs in the entire nation, I believe, that has an airport right on campus, so that’s a very distinguishing feature for us.”
BGSU’s airport currently boasts a total of six planes—four Cessna 172s, a Piper Arrow, and a Piper Seminole—all with recent paint jobs and interior equipment updates.
Doering added that hands-on instruction begins immediately for would-be pilots.
“If they’re in the flight program, they start flying the first week they are here.”
For more information, visit www.bgsu.edu/aviation.
