AOPA Pilot Blog: Reporting Points

i’ll be in Florida all this week, scurrying around AOPA Summit, but I can’t let Nov. 4 slip by without wishing many happy returns to Evelyn “Mama Bird” Johnson, who turns 100. Johnson’s incredible career as a flight instructor and designated pilot examiner are detailed in Mike Collins’ article; he also profiled her for the November 1999 AOPA Pilot. Then and now, Mama Bird retains one of the fattest logbooks you’re likely to come across. Her 57,635.4 flight hours make her the highest-time female pilot and the highest-time living pilot in the Guiness Book of World Records.

I have just one “Mama Bird” story: Johnson was a featured speaker at a Women in Aviation conference several years ago. In a soft Southern accent–she was born in Kentucky and lives in Tennessee–she recalled just how she came to be a pilot. Her husband was serving in the military during World War II. Left on her own, she was looking for an activity to fill her quiet days. Should she try tennis? Golf? She saw an advertisement that read, “Learn to Fly” and said, “I believe I’ll do that.” What began as a whim became a career that influenced thousands of pilots. Happy birthday, Mama Bird!

I first learned about Wasilla, Alaska, a city of about 10,000, while researching an article about mentors and student pilots. That article profiled a student pilot named Chad Speer from Wasilla, and it appeared in the May 2008 AOPA Flight Training.  In September 2008, Wasilla became extremely well known for another of its inhabitants–then-Gov. Sarah Palin, who was the Republican vice presidential nominee in the presidential election. Palin had been Wasilla’s mayor before she was elected governor. While all that was going on, Chad Speer and his dad, Rob, were plugging away at Chad’s training, flying Rob’s Super Cub in some of the most beautiful country imaginable, if the photos sent by his mom, Pamela, are any indication. (That’s Chad flying up the Knik Glacier.) On August 4, 17-year-old Chad passed his private pilot checkride. Congratulations to Chad!

How do you control the cost of your flight training? Do you try to fly frequently, to maximize retention and minimize repetition? Do you use a simulator–and if so, do you fly one at your flight school or a PC-based flight sim at home?

Please respond below, and let us know what’s worked for you (and what hasn’t). We’ll share the best ideas in a future issue of AOPA Flight Training magazine.

The light sport aircraft community, admittedly off to a slow start these past four years, ought to watch an experiment by the flight department at the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) in Melbourne, Fla. Director of Flight Training Nick Frisch has purchased two Remos light sport aircraft to join his fleet of 41 trainers. He is challenging a “significant unknown,” in his words, and that unknown is the public’s general acceptance of light sport aircraft.

Frisch is betting that among the school’s 7,000 non-aeronautical students there are a number of pilot candidates who will jump at the chance for a $5,000 sport pilot certificate. To improve chances for success, he will offer the Remos aircraft to the Melbourne community as well in a flying club. Some of the 41 trainers are ready for retirement. Will serious FIT pilot candidates accept the Remos because of its lower rental cost?

He is starting with two aircraft, but additional Remos aircraft will be purchased if the experiment works. So watch FIT’s flight department at the end of this year. That is when Frisch’s “significant unknown” will be known, and when a new order is, or is not, made.

Student pilot numbers are down, and will continue to be if the FAA is correct. The agency released its annual aviation forecast recently, where it said that student pilot numbers peaked this century at 94,420 in 2001. As you might expect, they’ve been in decline ever since, with an estimated 80,989 this year.

That in and of itself is news, but the forecast was created to, well…forecast. The good folks at the FAA expect student pilot numbers to hit a low of 72,050 in 2010 before rebounding to a high of 86,600 in 2025. That’s some sobering, bad news. But there’s a silver lining, actually two silver linings. The first is that the forecast is notoriously wrong so we shouldn’t believe it. Although, now that I say that I remember that it’s usually overly optomistic. Ugh. The second silver lining is that sport pilots are expected to multiply like wildfire, from only 2,623 last year to more than 20,000 by 2025. Will it happen? Refer to the statement above.

So what does the future hold for GA? Will those of us who are left be flying more, thereby negating the negative economic and political impacts? Or will all the baby boomers give up their medicals and fly an LSA at four gallons an hour on the weekend?

Personally, I’m taking the head-in-the-sand approach and will continue on as if GA is doing great. Kids will always love airplanes, adults will always need a safe, expeditious way to get from point A to point B, and weekend warriors will always need a break from life for a few hours. But that’s not to say we shouldn’t be proactive. I cringe when I think of all the students who have fallen off the FAA roll, driven away by a lousy flight school or selfish CFI. Hopefully they (we) will wake up one day and realize we can’t take this great thing we have for granted.

Monday, March 30, is the six-year anniversary of the demolition of Meigs Field in Chicago. I know lots of you had a soft spot in your hearts for this jewel on the lake.

Ten years ago, my family drove out to Chicago to visit my husband’s cousin, John Houghtaling. John was a great guy, a former submariner with the U.S. Navy, who had eight children–two of whom became pilots. When he learned I was taking flying lessons, nothing would do but that he give me a copy of a flying simulator program that he had used and enjoyed.

While sightseeing in Chicago we stopped at Meigs Field, and the family good-naturedly let me spend a half-hour watching aircraft take off and land. Meigs went right to the top of my “someday I’ll land here” list. Of course you know it never happened. Meigs was bulldozed, and John died in 2003 at the age of 86. Thank you, John, for sharing my excitement at learning to fly. Thank you, Meigs, for giving me something to shoot for as I practiced crosswind landings.

If you have Meigs memories, please share them in the Comments section.

We get a lot of press releases about flight training scholarships, and we try to publish them in the magazines and our electronic newsletters. These days, every little bit helps.

From time to time, I’m going to highlight some deadlines for scholarships as well as showcase some others that may be somewhat narrow in scope but are nonetheless great opportunities–if you fall into the right category.

For example, the Oklahoma Chapter of The Ninety-Nines is offering a $5,000 “Wings of the Future” scholarship. The qualified applicant is female and presumably a resident of Oklahoma, so that kind of narrows the field a bit. But still, $5,000! So, Oklahoma pilots, if you know a lady who has been on the fence about flying because of the cost, this could be her ticket to ride. Get more information on the Web site–but hurry, because applications must be postmarked March 31.

Coming up in just a few days (March 15) is your last chance to apply for one of three scholarships (two for $500 each, one for $1,000) offered by the folks at Pilotmall.com. Qualified applicants must be training for a sport or private pilot certificate, and you have to write an essay; see the Web site for the complete details. Five hundred dollars will buy you at least a couple more hours of dual with a rental airplane; $1,000 could get you through your checkride, depending on where you are in your training. So what are you waiting for? Good luck!

The winds were gusting to 30 knots at Bay Bridge Airport last Friday, and there wasn’t a whole lot of flying going on. Saturday, however, dawned calmer and clear, and pilots came out in droves.

I was there to write a story about sport pilot aviation, which is blossoming at this modest nontowered airport that’s located a few hundred yards from the Cheapeake Bay. (If you’re landing on Runway 11, your base and final are over the water.) From my perch in the pilot lounge, I could view a steady stream of aircraft taking off and landing. It was gratifying to see, given all of the crappy economic news we’ve been dealing with.

Even better was the opportunity to talk to student pilots who, quite simply, love flying. Some of these folks drive more than an hour to train here. None of them seemed to think that was any hardship.

In an upcoming issue of AOPA Flight Training, you’ll meet:

• Barry, whose years of sailing experience means she knows the watery landscape of the Eastern Shore intimately–but admits she has a little more trouble picking out landmarks on the ground…
• Anthony, a master mechanic who completed the King Schools home study program before he ever took a flight lesson…
• Tim, who at over 6 feet tall is probably the last person you’d think would want to fold himself into a light sport airplane–but he does, and has room to spare…
• Karen, a grandmother who lights up the room when she talks about learning to fly; and…
• Whitney, who soloed in November, plans her weekends around her lessons, and prefers her trainer’s handbrake to toebrakes.

There is justice in this world. Just ask the students at ATP, the nationwide flight school dedicated to training career pilots. This week ATP announced the career pilot program students who enrolled at mid-2008 prices will be given a rebate check of up to $2,500 because the cost of avgas has dropped more than $1.50.

Can you imagine what these students must be thinking? You want to give me money back? In this economy?

When you work the math, even a student eligible for the full refund will only get around 4 percent of the course fee back. That’s not much when you’re talking almost $60,000. But, the money isn’t really the point. It’s the principle. How many of us still pay fuel surcharges at our flight schools, or on the airlines for that matter? Yet, as we’ve closely watched the price at the fuel pump decrease rapidly, the surcharges remain. Why? Maybe supply of students has dropped off, or maybe insurance rates have gone up. Then why not raise the rental rates or instructor rates? Surcharges always have been a thinly veiled way of telling customers the business needs more money but doesn’t think they’re smart enough to compare pricing with a competitor.

So as the holiday season comes to a close, I say thanks ATP for doing what’s right and continuing the merriment just a little bit longer.

A conversation over lunch turned to flight schools as a fellow pilot talked about the poor customer service he experienced on his vacation while checking out in an airplane. Although we all may have similar stories to tell, I challenged those around the table to think about some of the good experiences they’ve had at flight schools–beyond the basic thrill of slipping the surly bonds of Earth.

And there were many bright spots. I heard about schools that always had a pot of coffee brewing, at least during these chilly winter months, and it was complimentary (each cup said, “Hey! Great landing!”). One pilot’s school sponsored weekly cookouts and other social activities. A flying club arranged monthly fly-outs of one to three days; students shared the flying and the expenses, and enjoyed sharing new experiences as a result. (You thought these were all going to be about food and drink, didn’t you?)

What do you like the most about the flight school where you trained, and why? What did that business do right? How did your instructor or school staff keep you coming back for more, especially as you struggled with landings, navigation, or whatever it was that you struggled with in training? I’d like to hear your thoughts.