Students will use the structure, shaped like an upside down U, as a laboratory to fly and test small unmanned aerial vehicles on Fifth Street near Perry Street, said Deborah Norris, Sinclair vice president of corporate services and workforce development.
“It’s really very much an indoor lab for flying,” she said.
Groundbreaking is set for May and the work in progress will be finished in early 2016.
This week, Sinclair opened its doors to the public to fly UAVs indoors at the college’s sprawling recreational field house, or Building 8.
The indoor flying ranges will be free of weather worries and flight restrictions that drones face flying outdoors under Federal Aviation Administration rules, said Andrew Shepherd, director of the UAS program at Sinclair.
“It’s a lot of extra capability,” he said.
The community college decided to construct a new flying lab rather than an addition to Building 13 because of the cost, Norris said. The 28,000-square-foot first-floor renovation of Building 13 will combine aviation and UAV education in one location. Students will have access to both aviation and drone flight simulators, sensors, avionics and engine labs and 3-D printers to create parts to assemble drones, among other things.
Flight attendants, mechanics and drone pilots can earn certification and degrees at the Dayton college.
The expansion, renovations and new construction is the latest attempt by Sinclair to become a national leader in unmanned aerial systems education and training, officials say. Since 2009, the college has spent more than $5 million on curriculum, UAV flight simulators and a growing fleet of drones.
Sinclair is one of three places in the country to combine both aviation and UAS education, joining Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and the University of North Dakota, officials said.
Sinclair’s reputation has grown with the expansion in education: Two students from Italy, for example, flew to Dayton to take a two-day aviation-related course recently, Shepherd said.
Within 10 years, Sinclair has projected 3,000 aviation and UAS students will graduate from the school.
Sinclair has 157 students who have declared a UAS-related course of study and counts more than 650 who have enrolled in UAS courses.
The college flies three large drones at both the Springfield-Buckley Municipal Airport and Wilmington Air Park under restricted flight conditions. College aviation officials have three additional certificates of authorizations, or the FAA’s permission to fly in a specific drone in a specific area under controlled conditions, pending with the federal agency.
The new drones would take flight in Springfield and Wilmington and above the National Center for Medical Readiness, also known as Calamityville, in Fairborn. School officials said the college wants to fly even more drones outdoors with other requests in the works.
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