Practical education

Boeing & UAL were part of the same corporation.

 I ran across this 1936 ad for the Boeing School of Aeronautics in an old magazine the other day and it made me wonder why, with so many industries suffering from a shortage of skilled workers, those industries unable to find qualified personnel, don't open their own trade schools to train people in the exact expertise they need in their business? Perhaps they could even offer tuition-free courses in exchange for the student agreeing to an obligation to work a few years for the company before being free to work where he or she chooses -- something like the way the armed forces do it with skills they need like medical doctors, dentists and oral surgeons, psychologists, psychiatrists and lawyers.

An example of this is the Navy offering to pay all costs for qualified personnel to attend the medical school of their choosing, in whatever specialty they want, only requiring in return that the individual serve in the Navy the equivalent number of years that they spent in internship.  The Navy also offers a signing bonus and monthly stipend to the student.  I'm sure other services offer similar programs.  Why can't civilian corporations do the same?

While looking up the Boeing school I found that Curtis-Wright also had its own technical school as did other airplane manufacturers such as Consolidated and Douglas.  These schools trained engineers, mechanics and pilots, with no obligation to work for the parent companies but certainly offered jobs by them.  Among the courses available at these schools were:

• Aeronautical Engineering
• Post Graduate Aeronautical Engineering
• Master Aviation Mechanic
• Specialized Engine
• Specialized Airplane
• Specialized Sheet Metal
• Aeronautical Drafting
• Aircraft Blueprint Reading

Looking at some of the graduates, I was impressed by their subsequent careers.  For example, Peter Bowers, the famous aviation historian, who worked for Boeing as an engineer for 36 years during that company's most innovative period. His only post-high school education was the Boeing school.  It was clearly all he needed.  Then there was Peter Buller, who went to work with deHaviland  Aircraft of Canada, involved in designing the Chipmunk, Beaver, Twin Beaver, Otter, Caribou, Buffalo, and Dash 7.  He, too, got all he needed to have a very successful career at the Boeing trade school.  Why can't we implement the same system today, by-passing the horrifically expensive, time-wasting, politicized universities?

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 The cost of the airplane in this ad in today's dollars would be about $27,000.  So just about anybody could buy an airplane to play in the skies with in those days, same as you could buy a boat or RV to enjoy on your days off today. I've been told that the main reason general aviation aircraft are so expensive and so few are produced compared to the past is because of restrictive government regulations and most especially because of litigation. Apparently, there was a huge surge in lawsuits against light plane manufacturers in the 1990s that forced many small makers out of business and decided the survivors to focus on corporate clients who employed experienced professional pilots, rather than cater to the weekend pilot.