From the window of a Cessna 172 flying west of Tumalo Falls, you can see what looks like a solar panel rising above a sea of ponderosa pines, half of them dead from beetles.

Two local flight instructors, Landon Clark and Simeon Gough, are so familiar with the route they’re surprised they never before noticed the few square feet of glass poking above the forest canopy, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

Flying on, they spoke casually to each other through their headsets, noting places they had recently hiked and experienced close calls. Rain clouds brought the unlimited skies so familiar to Central Oregon pilots to a low ceiling.

“Moving to the desert for six years really makes you appreciate Central Oregon,” Clark said before the flight. “I’m really into the outdoors and seeing everything I can. With flying, I’ve seen more of Oregon than I did after 20 years of life.”

Clark, 30, and Gough, 33, are graduates of the aviation program at Central Oregon Community College, which teaches students fixed-wing and helicopter aviation. For Clark and Gough, their service in the armed forces allowed them to attend COCC without paying out of pocket, giving them the chance to focus for two years on flying and studying.

“I would estimate that 60 to 65 percent of our students are veterans,” said Karl Baldessari, head of the COCC aviation program. “For most people, getting into aviation is cost-prohibitive.”

According to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, nearly 1 million veterans used $10.9 billion in benefits to pursue degrees and certificates in 2011. And a 2011 report by Boeing found that airlines will need more than 450,000 new pilots by 2029. There is an equally acute need for helicopter pilots, as the profession consists of mostly Vietnam-era pilots who are nearing retirement en masse.

“This level of benefits is fairly unprecedented,” Baldessari said. “And, more importantly, these students are entering a profession where we need people with the level of discipline the services teach.”

An associate degree in aviation from COCC takes two years of hard work and $80,000 in tuition. But the Post-9/11 GI Bill, signed into law in 2008, helps veterans afford the cost of aviation training. The benefits received depend on the number of days served, with the maximum value equalling full tuition and fees for a public university for 36 months or four academic years. Veterans also receive money for textbooks and a monthly living stipend, which in Bend is around $1,300. Previous incarnations of the GI Bill did not provide a stipend and offered less money toward tuition with greater restrictions on how that money was spent.

“Here’s a group of folks who otherwise would not have had this opportunity to study aviation,” Baldessari said. “They are often kids who out of high school didn’t go to college but served their country. At 18 they were in boot camp, and now a few years later they are professional pilots.”

While the military offered these students many skills, Baldessari estimates that only a small percentage of his students were directly involved in aviation.

“Most of these veterans weren’t able to be pilots in the service; in most branches you have to be a commissioned officer,” Baldessari said. “I think a lot joined because they had indirect associations with aviation. Either they were transported or worked on a carrier, maybe they saw a helicopter in action. Some were even mechanics.”

Baldessari said most students come to the program with more excitement about flying than knowledge about a pilot’s typical career path. A large component of the program involves familiarizing students with the aviation industry and the very different paths available to destinations like the major airlines and airborne firefighting. For many students, their first job out of school is as a flight instructor.

“People always find that funny,” Baldessari said. “But it makes a lot of sense. It doesn’t pay a tremendous amount, but it allows them to build hours without paying out of pocket. Also, you’ve just come out of training, having spent two years being taught rules and regulations, so it’s all fresh. After two or three years as an instructor, you have enough flight hours to be marketable at the next level.”

‘Bug that bites’

Clark saw the military as a way out of Central Oregon.

“I didn’t see a lot of opportunity growing up in La Pine,” Clark said. “I had enough of a small town but not enough money for college, and wasn’t ready for it at the time anyway.”

Clark served six years as a crew chief in New Mexico, tending to Lockheed F-117 Nighthawks, a stealth ground-attack jet. His interest in aviation predates his service, he said, but prior to his Air Force service, “It was always too expensive.” Clark at first didn’t realize that aviation would be covered by the GI Bill.

“When I found out my benefits would cover the program, it sure sounded better than pharmacy work, which I had been focused on,” he said. “Military people are type A, they want adventure, to see the world, have a high-stress job. Dealing with weather and handling an airplane fits that for me.”

After graduating from COCC in fall 2012, Clark is now a fixed-wing flight instructor for Professional Air, based at the Bend Municipal Airport. He plans on working his way up to the airlines, starting on a regional route, such as Portland to Redmond, and eventually moving up. His colleague Gough is also a Professional Air instructor, but took a different path to the profession and has different plans for what’s ahead.

“I was travelling around the country installing indoor firearm ranges, and one day I got back from a job and all I wanted to do was sleep in,” Gough said. “But my buddy woke me up early to go to a recruiter. I told him I’ve seen bases before and everyone on them looks goofy. But after talking to the recruiter, I was sold and felt that it was my time to serve.”

Gough entered the Air Force, working in different capacities for six years, including roles in nuclear security and firearm training. When he left, he said, he enrolled in school because he couldn’t find a job. He started at COCC’s welding program, which happened to be across from Redmond Airport. Like Clark, he jumped at the chance to study aviation when he learned his benefits would cover the program.

“It’s a bug that bites,” he said. “Once you get started it’s addictive, and I didn’t even want to do it for a living at first. I did it because it’s cool. I mean, how many people fly airplanes?”

After he has built up enough hours as an instructor, Gough may pursue a path that will take him on more dramatic flights than the one out past Tumalo Falls.

“I’m looking more toward law enforcement or firefighting,” he said. “Law could be anywhere from supporting speeding tickets to looking for illegal substance grows to following a high-speed chase.”

Flight paths

A good-natured rivalry exists between helicopter and fixed-wing students. The helicopter students stress how much smaller and tighter knit their community is. That’s partly due to the cost of the program, at COCC more than $100,000. A group of five involved in the COCC program at various stages said there is no way they would have ever flown without the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

“Cost-prohibitive is what they say,” said Glenn Iacovetta, 52, who served 22 years in the army.

Bryan Vette, 26, built jet engines in the Marines and then left to work as a mechanic for BMW. He also appeared in an MTV show called “Burnout,” in which he helped build a dragster. He studied at the Universal Technical Institute until he realized that his benefits would pay for aviation, something he knew he would rather be doing.

“I did the program in a year because that’s all the time I had left on my benefits. I needed a snorkel because I was buried most of the time,” he said.

Blake Harley, 27, tried to pay for an aviation program under the old GI Bill after being moved by the experience of flying over Baghdad. Speaking about his first attempt at completing a program before 2008, he said, “I was becoming poor pretty quickly.” He stopped, and six months later the Post-9/11 GI Bill went into effect and he returned to flying.

Sitting in a conference room together, the five helicopter pilots talked future careers. Dan Benson, 31, is already an instructor at Leading Edge. The others were mostly looking toward a job at Leading Edge, the flight school at the Bend airport that provides the hands-on portion of the COCC helicopter program. However, they stressed how the generosity of the Post-9/11 GI Bill makes it possible to meet the diverse needs of employers.

“You can get any rating you need here, and the government will pay for it,” Benson said. These ratings include mountain flying, night vision goggle training and external load, all of which are geared toward local needs.

As with fixed-wing pilots, the most common first step is working as an instructor. But the students stressed the number of less-visible career paths now open to them. In Washington state, helicopters are used to dry fields of cherries. There was even talk among the students of going down to New Zealand and working for the company that helped with the “Lord of the Rings” film crew. In the Gulf of Mexico, a need exists for helicopter pilots to fly between the coast and oil rigs.

Actual flying

Geordy Wilkinson, 32, dropped out of high school and moved to Central Oregon for the snowboarding. His path toward aviation is a perfect example of what the GI Bill and COCC’s aviation program can do for veterans.

“I realized not having an education means not having money,” he said.

Like many others, his first choice was military service. After 41⁄2 years active duty with the Marines and 51⁄2 years in the Army National Guard, Wilkinson was able to enroll in the fixed-wing program with COCC and Professional Air.

His goal is now to go back home to Alaska and fly small planes between villages.

“The big airlines are about running computer systems and monitoring instruments,” he said. “Up home, there is actual flying that needs to be done.”

Post-9/11 GI Bill full benefits

• Full tuition and fees for 36 months (four academic years) at a public school.

• Private schools are eligible if enrolled in the “Yellow Ribbon” program.

• Monthly living stipend based on school’s ZIP code.

• Annual stipend for books and supplies of up to $1,000.

• One-time rural benefit of $500 for those relocating from a rural area.

• Up to $2,000 for licensing test.

• Benefits available 15 years from end of service.

• Benefits begin accruing after 90 days active service.

• Full benefits reached after 36 months of active service.

Source: Department of Veterans Affairs