A Master’s student earns his private pilot license

Available online : Monday 2 July 2018

Tristan Maitre is the 1st MAE student to have followed the preparation for the private pilot license offered by ISAE-SUPAERO, which previously had been reserved to engineering students.

Tristan Maitre, a Swiss student who enrolled in the first year of the Master’s in Aerospace Engineering in September 2016, was one of the 35 ISAE-SUPAERO students selected to follow the preparation for a private pilot license.

He took theoretical courses in communication, aeronautical medicine, human factors, meteorology, performances, radionavigation and navigation and regulations during the first semester of his studies at ISAE-SUPAERO.

He then took advantage of 50 flight hours with ISAE-SUPAERO instructors at the Lasbordes airfield during semesters 2 and 3, finally taking the common exam (regulations, human performance, meteorology and communication) and the specific exam (flight principles, operational procedures, flight preparation and performances, understanding of aircraft and navigation), which he passed last May.

Tristan spoke about his longstanding passion for aeronautics:

“Like many ISAE-SUPAERO students, I have had a passion for aviation since I was a child. After general aeronautics studies in Switzerland, my homeland, I decided to come to the heart of the aeronautics industry – Toulouse – and to enroll in the Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering to increase my expertise in the field.

During this program, I not only had an enriching multicultural experience and improved my profile as an engineer, I was also able to follow a private pilot training program that was open to Master’s students for the first time. Beyond applying the basic aeronautical concepts learned on the ground, such as navigation, flight mechanics and meteorology, the time spent in the cockpit transmitted notions that you may not necessarily be able to learn in the classroom. Each flight is different and teaches you a little more about yourself: your ability to concentrate, to make decisions, to resist stress, to gain in self-confidence, etc. And with practice and thanks to the experience transmitted by the instructors at Lasbordes, you become a better pilot.

While my specialization in Systems Engineering gave me the tools to grasp the increasing complexity in developing aviation systems, my private pilot training gave me an outlook that helped me to better understand the place of the human being in the airborne ecosystem. And I enjoyed using this perspective based on human factors and man-machine interaction in the Master’s program during the courses taught by the DCAS (Department of Aerospace Vehicles Design and Control) specialists in neuroergonomics.”