State OKs new program for missionary aviators

Moody Bible Institute Northwest has received state approval to offer a five-year program in missionary aviation technology, based in Spokane.

State higher education regulators last week approved the new program, which will be offered in coordination with the Community Colleges of Spokane.

The full program is expected to have an enrollment of up to 125 students, said Cecil Bedford, the Spokane manager of Moody Aviation, a subsidiary of Chicago-based Moody Bible Institute.

Moody moved its aviation program from Tennessee to Spokane in 2003. For the past two years, the program has provided courses only in Bible instruction and aircraft maintenance.

The full program involves a first year in Bible studies, two years of aircraft maintenance, and two final years in flight instruction. The program’s first Spokane-based flight-training courses will start this fall.

The entire five-year program costs students $85,000.

Nearly half that total cost, however, is incurred in the two years of flight training, and not every student needs to take flight training, Bedford explained. Those who want intensive maintenance training are allowed to complete a four-year course that doesn’t include flight training.

Flight training involves about 250 hours of flight time, he said.

Moody Aviation has graduated more than 900 students from its program, Bedford said. They’re now working with church missions around the world, including in South America, Asia and Africa.

“The program is nondenominational. Graduates end up working with any mission program they choose,” said Bedford.

To date, the program has 18 students taking Bible classes and about 49 students in the two-year maintenance program. The maintenance program is the same as for the Community Colleges of Spokane’s associate degree in aircraft maintenance.

Because Moody contracts with CCS for that instruction, it’s able to save money by basing the program in Spokane, Bedford said.

In Tennessee the aviation program had more than 35 workers. In Spokane it will have three full-time workers and then rely on contracted or loaned faculty, plus interns, he said.

Moody Aviation is constructing a hangar at Felts Field for storing at least 10 aircraft and for maintenance. That hangar will also be Moody Aviation’s home office.