Student pilot gives NSCC president a lift

By Ethan Forman
Staff writer

May 08, 2008 05:45 am

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DANVERS — Bobby Curry of Boxford donned a pair of sunglasses as the pilot-in-command of a training flight out of Beverly Airport yesterday.

This was no ordinary flight for the 19-year-old student pilot, however, because it included a special passenger: Wayne Burton, president of North Shore Community College. That's where Curry is earning his wings in the aviation science professional pilot program.

The program has been training pilots and flight instructors for more than 30 years, and it's housed at the Beverly Flight Center at the airport's West Side off Old Burley Street in Danvers.

North Shore Community College runs the only such pilot training program at the community college level in Massachusetts, college officials say.

The two-year program was also the first nationally accredited aviation science program at the community college level in the nation, Burton said.

Burton, who served on a reaccreditation committee, had never visited the program before yesterday. Then, John Bosco, the program coordinator and a 2003 program graduate, invited Burton to fly. Bosco is a commercial pilot and flight instructor, though he does not teach students in NSCC's program.

"The objective of the day was really to show you what goes on up here," Bosco said. "What the classrooms are, what the airplanes look like, see our simulation technology, that kind of stuff, and also to get you up into the airplane because we have 44 students in the program that are doing this."

Before Burton took off in the Piper Warrior aircraft accompanied by Bosco, Curry and a news photographer, Bosco said the passengers were at the top of the "weight envelope."

"I had soup for lunch, no carbs," Burton joked. Then he added: "Not to be overly dramatic, but the last time I flew in small aircraft was in Vietnam."

The flight took Burton and crew over the community college's Danvers campus, then north to Plum Island, then south to the college's Lynn campus before returning to Danvers.

The pilot program helps keep Beverly Airport viable by training new pilots, Burton said. The airport helps Beverly economically because it is a quick way for executives to wing in and out of Beverly to reach the Cummings Center business and industrial park.

The program at North Shore Community College is also an economic advantage to Curry.

After graduating from Masconomet Regional High in 2007, Curry wanted to fly off to the four-year Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida. But a year at Embry-Riddle can cost $50,000 a year, Bosco said.

Instead, at the urging of a former flight instructor, Curry opted to go to the local program, which can cost $40,000 for two years, including the price of fuel.

North Shore Community College's credits are transferrable to Embry-Riddle, so Curry can finish his degree there when he is done flying here.

"It really is a big financial benefit," said Bosco, who took over from the program's former longtime coordinator, Bob Finkelstein, a few years ago.

The cyclical nature of the airline industry has Bosco encouraging students to pursue a bachelor's degree on top of all the flight training in case they get furloughed from piloting.

Curry, who has been flying since November 2006, said a cousin, who is now a pilot for Southwest Airlines, inspired him to become a pilot by taking him to air shows as a youngster. Curry's knees are too bad for him to go into the military to learn to fly, but that has not deterred him from his goal of flying 747s someday.

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