HanSeo Aviation Technology Education Center; New Hub for Aviation Specialization Training
HanSeo University’s Aviation Technology Education Center was completed on October 28 last year. The center is expected to upgrade the aviation education of our university, which is already recognized as world class. Two years after the groundbreaking ceremony on October 25, 2019, a new hub for aviation technology education was finalized. In this issue, we will hear from Director Kim Cheon-yong of the Aviation Technology Education Center about this state-of-the-art educational infrastructure that has emerged as another pride of our university.
1. First, please tell me how our university decided to establish the Aviation Technology Education Center. Although our university has already gained a reputation as an aviation specialized educational institution, the new Aviation Technology Education Center has been established to create a new paradigm of aviation convergence specialized education environment to leap forward as the world’s first-class aviation specialty university in name and reality.
2. Please explain the dimensions and facilities of this center. The Aviation Technology Education Center was built on a site of about 420,000 m2 and a total construction area of about 5,500 m2, with one underground floor and three above-ground floors. On the first floor, there is a large hangar capable of accommodating a Boeing 737 aircraft owned by the university, as well as an aircraft system, and engine and avionics-related labs. The second and third floors consist of labs for the Aeronautical Engineering and the Unmanned Aircraft Systems departments, as well as the wind tunnel and nondestructive testing and 3D printing lab rooms, as well as the classrooms for convergence majors in aeronautical engineering fields such as aircraft machinery and unmanned aircraft systems. In addition, our Aviation Technology Education Center has a host of aviation experts and various lab equipment. About ten aviation experts with a background in aviation maintenance and professional experience at the center, as well as the instructors from the Aeronautical Engineering and Unmanned Aircraft Systems departments, use this facility to provide competency-based technical education through theory and maintenance training. The center owns a Boeing 737, Cessna 310s, and helicopters. In addition, it has about 20 aircraft engines including the latest large CFM56 turbofan engines. It is also implementing customized training for the aviation industry through convergence and combined aviation technology training using various unmanned aerial vehicle-related equipment and 3D printers.
3. Please describe Aviation technology education programs undertaken in this center. With the establishment of the Aviation Technology Education Center, the quota for the aviation machinist training course at the Aviation Technology Education Center of our university has expanded. The facilities of the center used in this training course are designed to meet the requirements for aviation machinists of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). Designed for the scale of airlines and aviation MRO business sites, it is the first in Korea to provide heavy maintenance training, including the operational check of the landing gear of the Boeing 737 medium-sized aircraft. As a result, we have laid the foundation for nurturing aviation maintenance crews with excellent adaptability to the airline and aviation MRO industries. In addition, we expect that the center will be used as a venue for cooperative communication education covering aviation operation, transportation, and airport fields.
4. How is this center used other than for training HanSeo students? For the infrastructure of the Aviation Technology Education Center to contribute to the development of the domestic aviation industry, we have applied for the Aviation Training Organization (ATO) authorization for the aircraft model training course, aviation maintenance training course, and aviation safety management with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. In particular, the “Boeing 737 GEN FAM” program among the aircraft training courses is the first course administered in Korea at a university, and it is being offered for the purpose of cultivating practical aviation maintenance skills through mediumsized aircraft experience for students specializing in aviation maintenance at other universities and the general public. The aviation safety management course is intended to provide training on aviation human factors and aviation safety management system (SMS) for small air transporters and national organizations that operate aircraft, which lack systematic aviation safety training. We expect that this education facility at our university will be of great help in promoting national aviation safety. 5. Please inform us about the center’s future direction and vision. Based on the center equipped with a world-class aviation infrastructure and aviation education programs, it provides training for staff in small domestic aviation maintenance service providers lacking aviation maintenance training conditions, as well as aviation training in such countries and regions as Mongolia, India, South America, and Africa. We expect that the center will gain more momentum in attracting international students. In particular, an official from the Mongolian Aviation Administration, which recognizes our university as an aviation education institution for its own country, recently visited our university and praised the scale and facility quality of the Aviation Technology Training Center. On January 20 of this year, in the presence of the President of the Paraguayan Aviation Administration, an international exchange agreement was signed with our university’s Aviation Technology Education Center and the Faculty of Polytechnics at National Asuncion University in Paraguay.

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