2) Presence Build It And They Will Come - Seneca College

eceive their flight training under the auspices of the training programs
already in place at that site. In addition to the regular Seneca tuition, these
students were required to foot the full cost of their own flying time. Very
soon the group had diminished to 26 students in the then three-year
diploma.
On the evening of January 28, 1969, the course was a mere semester old
and already the word was out. On this night, an information session on the
course was held at Sheppard Campus to which over 80 interested students
came…one, through the snow, all the way from Montreal. By September,
1969, the student numbers had increased to two classes of 20 students and
the arrangement with Buttonville was extended to include all of these
students. In the meantime, the College had managed to negotiate a reduced
hourly rate for flight time for Seneca students. It was one of many
concessions that the folks at Toronto Airways would accord the Seneca
aviation students.
From the very outset of this program, it was recognized that Seneca would
have to acquire aircraft for training and flying purposes as soon as was
feasible…and that this would necessarily entail the securing by the College of
the regular and reliable use of essential airport, maintenance and storage
facilities. To fast-track these requirements, Seneca College established a
committee which included York University (also at this time avidly interested
in the teaching of flying), the then Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (which
boasted a time-honoured program in Aeronautical Technology), Central
Technical High School (which gave courses in Aircraft Maintenance) and the
most reputable University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies. The
members of this committee had one overarching objective at that time: to
petition the Department of National Defence (DND) in Ottawa in support of
the establishment of a world-class Aviation Training Centre at the Downsview
Airport which was wholly within Seneca’s mandated Area #7 and which could
be the early answer to a major campus to the west of Yonge. It was agreed
that DND would only be contacted by one group in the education field
regarding the use of the facilities at Downsview since any of those
educational institutions interested in aviation would automatically become a
part of the Committee. So, the market was cornered.
In mid-1969, the Seneca Board of Governors approved the purchase of a
GAT-1 Trainer, a used Cessna 172 and a Piper Cherokee Arrow. The College
then applied for those licences required to operate a flying school for Seneca
students…and the plan and the fondest hope was that, by early 1970, Seneca
College would be a fully accredited flying school with students flying in the
College’s wholly- owned aircraft out of a Seneca-inspired Aviation Training
Centre at Downsview Airport. Over 30 years later, Seneca students still fly
out of Buttonville and DND is still entertaining appropriate uses for
Downsview. But, it was typical of the kind of dreams Seneca nourished from
the very beginning and, as 30 long flying years would show, the College was
well treated by Toronto Airways through which hundreds of remarkably
successful Seneca pilots would graduate…and will.
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