Canadore’s state-of-the-art Aviation Campus located at the top of Airport Hill is one of North Bay’s best kept secrets but is well-known across Canada and around the world.
The $12.5 million campus, built in 2002, is home to top-of-the-line, industry standard training tools, dedicated staff and faculty and is a draw to students from all over the world.
The 87,000 sq. ft training facility is ideally located next to Jack Garland’s 10,000 foot runway (which is the longest north of Toronto.)
The hangar is easily the campus highlight boasting 17,000 sq. ft of prime training space. It is filled to capacity with aircraft for students to work hands-on. Housed within are approximately nine planes and five helicopters, including the Beechcraft Kingair Model A100 recently donated by Voyageur Airways.
The Kingair, which retailed for over $500,000 in 2008, has flown more than 14,000 hours and has made over 16,000 landings. It has operated throughout Canada and the United States as a nine-seat commuter, a six-seat executive and a two-patient air ambulance.
“Before I came to the College, I was told by several people that Canadore was the best school to go to if you were serious about aviation and they were right. The campus is amazing, the faculty have a lot of industry experience and we work on real planes and parts, which is an amazing way to put our theory into practice,” said Ryan Spurrell, a student in his second year of Canadore’s Aircraft Maintenance program.
Most of the aircraft are donated and provide an excellent platform for students to train on current operational aircraft with modern turbine engines. The campus has innovative training tools including a fire detection simulator, a motorized hydraulic system trainer, a fuel injection system training simulator and a three axis autopilot system simulator.
The facility has a tiered lecture theatre that seats 80, four workshops, three labs, and six classrooms. The hangar is often used as a meeting and conference area by various community organizations including trade shows, outdoor shows and large scale dinner engagements. This past summer, the campus was also host to 120 Royal Canadian Air Cadets who partook in specialized summer training.
Three innovative Canadore programs are offered at the campus – Aircraft Structural Repair, Aircraft Maintenance and Avionics Maintenance – as well as two partner programs through First Nations Technical Institute and Essential Helicopters.
Currently, there are approximately 300 students enrolled in programs at the campus, 80 of which are from China and other international locales.
The skills and training Canadore students receive set them up for stellar careers in the Aviation industry. Aviation graduates find employment all across Canada and around the world. A large number are locally employed at Voyageur Airways and alternately at Great Slave Lake Helicopters in Yellowknife.
