Workforce Development

The civilian helicopter industry is experiencing a significant shortage of skilled professionals. In the next 15 years, the industry will need more than 7,500 helicopter pilots and more than 40,000 aviation maintenance technicians. Opportunities abound for military pilots and maintainers transitioning to civilian aviation careers and for students interested in getting started in a vertical aviation career. VAI recognizes the opportunity and challenge that workforce development presents for the industry and the support VAI can provide.

As opportunity, it gives rise to VAI’s career center and continuing education benefits for VAI members. This includes Elevations courses (formerly Professional Education Courses) and Foundations Challenge (formerly Rotor Safety Challenge) sessions, the industry career fair, and the Mil2Civ workshop at VERTICON; a student category of VAI membership with the ability to apply for scholarship awards; and discounts for aviation-related education through King Schools and Purdue Global.

As challenge, the issue continues to be the focus of VAI’s Workforce Development Industry Advisory Council (IAC). Although recently formed, the IAC is not new–in its previous format as a working group, the IAC had a similar charge: to create and review programs designed to address pilot, maintenance technician, and mission crew shortages across the vertical flight industry.

VAI is working with industry to help develop a recruiting strategy that covers crucial areas such as educational pathways to vertical aviation careers, the Mil2Civ transition, vertical aviation–related job fairs, and marketing vertical aviation as a career. Cultivating partnerships that will facilitate our industry’s ability to recruit and retain talent, such as the Rotor Pathway Programs, is another important avenue to successfully addressing workforce shortages.