Gao Yujiao, Guo Zhongzheng
BEIJING, Aug. 2 -- The PLA Air Force (PLAAF) has successfully wrapped up its 2022 pilot cadet recruitment, with over one thousand senior high school graduates enrolled by the PLAAF as pilot cadets. The PLAAF dispatched Y-20 transport aircraft for the first time on July 31 to send newly-admitted pilot cadets to the Aviation University of Air Force for registration, in an effort to boost their sense of honor and professional pride.
On July 31 and August 1, the air force set up boarding points in Shijiazhuang, Jinan, Nanjing, Changsha, and Chengdu, where newly-admitted pilot cadets boarded in lines the Y-20 aircrafts which will send them to the Aviation University of Air Force for registration. This is the first time the PLAAF has sent Y-20 to deliver pilot cadets to school.
According to the pilot selection bureau of the PLAAF, since the Air Force began the admission of pilot cadets independently 30 years ago, the number of newly-admitted pilot cadets this year has set a new high, including over 400 graduates from the youth aviation schools jointly opened by the Air Force and 16 superior senior high schools in China.
The newly admitted pilot cadets’ average score on the National College Entrance Exam was 59 points higher than the threshold score for key universities, and 60 of them will go to Peking University, Tsinghua University, or Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics to spend the first three years of their college life there and then transfer to the Air Force Aviation University to receive aviation theory learning and flight training. Since 2012, the PLAAF has started to train pilot cadets jointly with the above three universities.