Far Eastern Air Transport to Send Seven Pilots to UND

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences
Contact: Karen Ryba/Phone: 701-777-4761
January 26, 2007

Far Eastern Air Transport to Send
Seven Student Pilots to UND

(Grand Forks, North Dakota): The UND Aerospace Foundation (UNDAF) is proud to announce that Far Eastern Air Transport (FAT) has committed to sending a group of students to train to become pilots at the University of North Dakota (UND) located in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Seven FAT employees have enrolled at UND and in the following weeks will begin a concentrated flight training program designed specifically to meet the needs of FAT.

“We are very proud to have this group of students from Taiwan coming to UND,” said Chuck Pineo, Vice President of Business Development for UNDAF. “The acquisition of this training partnership is a combination of hard work by Far Eastern Air Transport, UND, and UND Aerospace, and can be directly credited to Governor Hoeven’s North Dakota trade mission to Taiwan in June.”

“The aerospace program at UND is known throughout the world for quality flight training,” Governor John Hoeven said. “This partnership is exciting and will further strengthen UND’s aviation program and further bring awareness of North Dakota in Taiwan.”

The students will be UND students for 12 months and live on campus during their flight training in Grand Forks. According the Bruce Smith, President of the UND Aerospace Foundation and Dean of the Odegard School, “Far Eastern Air Transport is utilizing many of the resources the Odegard School has to offer. Like our other undergraduate students, the FAT students are utilizing our CRJ course, High Altitude Chamber experience and physiology curriculum in their training. These are courses that many other airlines don’t offer in their ab initio pilot training.”

About Far Eastern Air Transport (FAT):
Far Eastern Air Transport is the first private air transport company completely run by Taiwanese people. Operating out of Taiwan, FAT has gone into the Asian-Pacific rim, gaining wider flying areas inside the region. FAT’s wings have already extended to destinations in Thailand, Philippine, Malaysia, Palau, Indonesia, and Korea. It is FAT’s mission to provide and maintain an outstanding and consistent service quality to customers.

About UND Aerospace: UND Aerospace, which includes the Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences at the University of North Dakota and the UND Aerospace Foundation (UNDAF), is an international leader in collegiate and contract aviation education and training services flying over 110,000 hours per year in over 120 aircraft. UNDAF also has facilities in Honolulu, Hawaii with Honolulu Community College; Spokane, Washington with Spokane Falls Community College; Lumberton, North Carolina with Robeson Community College; Phoenix, Arizona in conjunction with Chandler-Gilbert Community College; Williston, North Dakota with Williston State College; and Crookston, Minnesota with the University of Minnesota in addition to its home-base in Grand Forks, North Dakota. With more than 2,100 students from throughout the world, the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences is the second largest college at the University of North Dakota. Undergraduate and graduate programs leading to a variety of rewarding careers in aerospace are offered through four different academic departments: aviation, atmospheric sciences, computer science and space studies. The UND Aerospace training complex is the most technologically advanced environment for aerospace education, training and research in the world.
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