From Classroom to Cockpit: Captain David Robertson’s JC Aviation Programme Reaches New Heights

From Classroom to Cockpit: Captain David Robertson’s JC Aviation Programme Reaches New Heights

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Record enrolment, more young women and a 22-year legacy show how one JC old boy’s vision is changing who gets to fly.

For more than two decades, young Jamaicans have been arriving at Jamaica College with their feet on the ground—and leaving with their ambitions somewhere above the clouds.

The Jamaica College Aviation Programme is celebrating a major milestone: 22 years of summer aviation programming, record student participation and a dramatic rise in the number of girls preparing to take their place in the cockpit.

At the centre of this remarkable journey is Captain David Robertson, a Jamaica College old boy from the Class of 1978. Robertson conceived the programme, helped introduce its formal academic component and has remained the driving force behind its operation and expansion.

What began as an audacious idea—bringing serious aviation education into a Jamaican secondary-school environment, has become a regional trailblazer and a powerful engine of career mobility.

A record-breaking year

This year, 73 young people enrolled in the summer programme, easily surpassing the previous record of 57. Female enrollment also jumped from an average of only three participants to a record eleven.

That growth matters. For generations, girls interested in aviation were too often encouraged to see themselves serving passengers rather than commanding aircraft or designing the machines themselves. JC’s programme is helping young women envision a much wider horizon, as pilots, aerospace engineers, air traffic controllers, flight dispatchers and aviation technicians.

Students have come from schools across Jamaica, including Oberlin High and Merl Grove High, making the programme’s influence much broader than the JC campus.

For some participants, the instructional flight included in the programme is their first time aboard a small aircraft. One student recalled initially being frightened to look outside before finally finding the courage to take in the extraordinary view below: “Everything was small, it was big—I could see everything.”

That transformation, from apprehension to exhilaration, is part of what Captain Robertson has spent years trying to make possible.

The vision behind the programme

Over two decades ago, Captain Robertson, then already an experienced commercial pilot, presented a plan for theoretical aviation education that would be available to Jamaican high-school students. Jamaica College became its home base, while students from other schools were welcomed into the programme.

It was the first initiative of its kind at a secondary school in the English-speaking Caribbean.

Robertson understood that aviation was not short of interested young people; it was short of accessible entry points. Professional flight training has traditionally required considerable financial resources, specialist instruction and knowledge of an industry that can appear impenetrable from the outside.

His answer was to bring the runway closer to the students.

“Get the kids involved,” Robertson urged as the programme marked its latest milestone. “Aviation is good. Aviation is safe.”

The initiative is far more substantial than a casual school club. Students encounter aerodynamics and the theories of flight, aircraft engines and minor repairs, aviation meteorology, navigation and map reading, air law, safety, survival techniques, weight and balance, and computerised aviation systems.

Classroom instruction is reinforced through simulator experience and practical flying exposure at Tinson Pen Aerodrome, allowing students to connect equations, weather charts and navigation principles with the real demands of the cockpit.

Robertson has also built partnerships with instructors from the Aviation College of the Americas, extending the pathway from secondary-school exposure into more advanced aviation education.

Breaking aviation’s wealth barrier

The programme’s real achievement cannot be measured only by enrollment.

It has helped democratise access to an industry once viewed as the preserve of the wealthy. By introducing aviation while students are still in high school, JC gives them time to understand the qualifications, disciplines and career options involved before they must make costly tertiary-education decisions.

The programme also teaches an important lesson: aviation does not begin and end with becoming an airline pilot. The industry depends on engineers, mechanics, meteorologists, dispatchers, airport managers, safety specialists and air traffic controllers.

Captain Robertson has therefore created more than a pilot pipeline. He has built an early bridge into an entire global economic sector.

With the international aviation industry continuing to report demand for trained personnel, Captain Robertson believes the timing could not be better: “It’s the right time for youngsters—and 'middle-sters' to get involved in aviation, get involved in flying, and the sky’s the limit thereafter.”

Proof in the skies: Georgio Hado

The programme’s impact is perhaps best captured by the story of Jamaica College old boy Georgio Hado.

In November 2021, the then 20-year-old graduate of the JC Aviation Programme made history as the youngest Jamaican pilot to fly a single-engine aircraft solo from the United States to Jamaica.

Hado’s roughly 1,446-mile journey took him across multiple jurisdictions and involved several fuel and island stops. Flying a small, single-engine aircraft over open ocean demanded careful attention to weather, fuel, altitude, navigation and the aircraft’s limited gliding range.

The flight was celebrated not merely as a personal achievement, but as a breakthrough for young West Indian aviators. It demonstrated what can happen when youthful ambition is met early with instruction, mentorship and a credible pathway into the industry.

Captain Robertson remembered Hado as a student who consistently displayed determination and poise. His historic flight became airborne proof of the programme’s central promise: young Jamaicans can do far more than dream about aviation, they can excel in it.

A legacy still gaining altitude

“Captain David Robertson’s vision has given generations of young people the confidence to see aviation as an attainable future. This milestone reflects what Jamaica College strives to do at its best: combine disciplined learning with bold opportunities that can transform lives.”

 ~Principal Wayne Robinson

Twenty-two years after its summer programme began and more than a decade after aviation entered JC’s academic offerings, the initiative is still gaining altitude.

Its expanding reach, record enrollment and growing participation by young women are the results of sustained work, not a passing experiment. Captain David Robertson has remained its visionary, organiser, advocate and most persistent champion.

Jamaica College’s motto, Fervet Opus in Campis—“Work is Burning”—has always spoken to energy, purpose and achievement. Through Captain Robertson’s work, that fire has taken flight.

The sky, once perceived as a limit, has become a destination.