The Youngstown flight school's transition took off, and is almost ready for landing.

The last ground school is finishing up under Eastern Gateway Community College. After that, the school will be independent until YSU is ready to take over. The program is currently in a transition stage. If everything goes to plan, any student taking the class next year will be under YSU.

"The next ground school is actually going to start under the charity itself, we call it Youngstown Flight Center. And hopefully by the time the next cohort is ready, YSU will be ready, and it will be a YSU program," said Mike Hillman, flight instructor at Youngstown Flight School and owner of JETS.

Ground school takes 12 weeks, and the flight training takes between six to 12 months to complete. Since this is one of the only flight schools near Youngstown, a lot of students want to join the program.

"Because of the pilot shortage and because there aren't a lot of training opportunities anywhere near us, we are inundated with with students," said Hillman.

A student at the Youngstown flight school, Che Trevena, started the program a few months ago, and said it has already exceeded his expectations.

"My experience here has been absolutely amazing .You know being from Youngstown, seeing the changes they've made…. Adding the flight hanger and adding the classrooms. It's just been a great experience overall," said Trevena. 

The next course starts anytime between the fall and January. 

Going through the flight school can take a student anywhere from a private pilot to a commercial pilot or flight instructor. The program also allows students to build hours in order to be hirable at airlines.

Hillman says once the transition is over, he hopes YSU will help fill in any staffing positions that were lost when Eastern Gateway paused enrollment.

"We already had the instructors in the airplanes. What we didn’t have handy is bookkeepers, people to answer the phones, all of that staff was going to be on the eastern gateway side. With the migration to YSU, we hope that’s the gap they are going to be able to pick up," said Hillman.

The new program is still in the planning stages. Hillman doesn't know how YSU plans to structure the program, but says he doesn't expect any problems during the transition.