For the community and by the community, Learning Curve seeks to bring flight school owners and operators, and the businesses that support them, together for the open sharing of knowledge. Whether it be a story of success at your school or where you see the future of flight training headed, share it with your peers. Submit a blog entry by clicking on the link above, or comment often on other blogs to add to the conversation.

Anyone order sim training?

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We at Holladay Aviation offer a unique service designed to help pilots throughout the Washington, D.C., area save time and money on initial and recurrent flight training. Our Mobile Flight Simulator (aka “The Sim-Mobile”) is an FAA-approved Elite PI-135 Basic Aviation Training Device (BATD) that we’ve installed in our Honda Odyssey minivan. Our unique system allows us to bring the benefits of flight simulation directly to the customer, anywhere, anytime.

With the economy continuing its slow-flight holding pattern at the start of 2011, my flight training hours were at all-time low since I began teaching in 2005. My husband, Dana Holladay, and I began to look for ways that we could diversify our services and better serve our customer base here in the Washington, D.C. area.

The inspiration for what would become the Sim-Mobile came from Dana’s travels around town for his full-time job in the restaurant business. Dana, who is also a CFI, noticed an increasing number and variety of mobile service providers: dog groomers, veterinarians, auto detailers, massage therapists, even dentists. He came home one day and asked me what I thought about creating a mobile flight simulator business, and it didn’t take us long to decide to go for it.

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Make your own great instructors

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The thrill of explaining what makes an airplane fly, what the flight controls do, and going over a thorough preflight while your new student eagerly awaits their chance behind the controls is an honor. That excitement you feel from that forty-forth touchdown, when your student actually pulled the airplane into the proper flare with the nose aligned with the centerline, is hard to explain. The ecstatic energy you feel when your student, after his first solo, shuts down the airplane, opens the door, has a huge smile on his red face, and says, “That was awesome!” These are just the beginning of the fulfillment that comes with being a flight instructor.

Airline, corporate, and military pilots were all taught by someone. That someone that changed their lives forever was a flight instructor. The FAA knows the importance of a flight instructor. A person who wants to become a flight instructor has to pass two written exams and many go directly to the Flight Standards District Office for the practical checkride. These examiners at the FSDO aren’t playing around either. They expect the examinee to be a meteorologist, mechanic, physicist, psychologist, and teaching professional.

Left to right: Greenville-based instructor William Bowen, Spartanburg-based instructor Adam Lockamy, Director of Operations Michele Rash, Chief Flight Instructor Cyndy Hollman, and Shane Martin, operations and future CFI

As more people realize the importance of quality flight instruction, there is a growing demand for professional flight instructors. In the past some people may have thought, “I’m just a flight instructor.” But now really good flight instructors are sought out and paid top dollar for their contribution to aviation.

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Diversify through the hard times

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Times are tough in the aviation sector. The proverbial road to success has become a little narrower as companies transform, trim their fat and consolidate their way to what we all hope is a brighter future. One way we at US Aviation hope to continue to grow is through diversification.

Six years ago we existed as only a flight training academy and small maintenance facility serving the north Texas region. In 2007 we received our first International students. These students knew other students who knew others and so on. Within six months we were in the throes of what is now called the “Indian Boom” with more than 60 students from south Asia working toward their commercial certificates. As with any boom this was short-lived as their home pilot labor markets started to saturate and the student levels dropped down to more sustainable levels. We were worried about the future and did not know if we could continue to grow, but we knew we had made contact with a growing list of industry partners around the world, many of which were former students. We reached out and found that with the right combination of incentive, proven success, and competitive rates students from all over the world were interested in training at US Aviation Academy. On a long wall in the central corridor of the Academy now hangs a map of the world pinned with the home locations of our pilot graduates, more than 35 countries so far. Some of these countries send us government or airline contract students, but our most successful marketing tool continues to be word of mouth. As with any business, when you put out a good product people recognize that and it enables you to grow even in difficult times.

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