We Still Do It Like Lindy Did, And We're Still Learning Like He
Was
Once again in looking at a subset of the year in review we can
see certain trends emerging. A cursory glance at flight training
says it's much like it was in 1925. Hmmm... yeah. If you don't look
deeply.
First, there is a shift in who's taking flight training and how
underway, and as a result of this there's a shakeout in flight
schools.
Second, Part 141
ab-initio programs continue their growth, even though they too are
seeing a brutal shake-out in their ranks. Despite the desperate
straits of the airline industry, young people are gambling big
money -- parents' money, or borrowed money, but big money
nonetheless -- on Part 141 complete all-in-one training packages.
We have seen that some of these consistently produce outstanding
pilots, some produce bare-minimum seventy-percenters, and some are
ratings mills where the output varies wildly because the individual
has a great influence in his or her training.
There is a definite need for the student to caveat emptor when
he or she is laying out most of $100k to become a sky god (or
goddess). A couple of these schools have folded, leaving students
holding the bag for the loan. Even well-established, successful
programs have been threatened with closing.
The Student Trend
Student starts are down a little in 2005, a trend we can hang on
soaring fuel prices, and the student that we're seeing fewer of is
the "hobby" student. The curious kid, the mid-life crisis guy, the
retiree ordered out of the house to find a hobby, all are down in
05, and a larger share of starts consists of people who intend and
hope to fly for a living. This is good news for those flight
schools, Part 61 or 141, that can move a student along briskly and
offer advanced ratings, and not so good for the small school with
few airplanes and instructors with tight schedules. For the
industry it's an alarming trend, at least that part of the industry
that thinks GA ought to be healthy in its own right.
Two Major Schools Down In 2005
Two schools closed in
2005, leaving irate students filing lawsuits against what appeared
to be empty shells of corporations. Both schools were oriented
towards a Part 141 airline curriculum, and took large cash
deposits, or loans up front, from students. After the closure of
the schools, it turned out that the pre-paid tuition had been spent
in Ponzi-like desperation.
TAB Express was an egregious
case, with one of the owners locking the doors, giving
the instructors a half hour to empty their closets as "the money is
gone," then driving off into the sunset this June.
In a Ferrari.
Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma, also closed its doors
abruptly, in this case, in September. The school, a long-standing
low-budget leader, was a favorite for foreign students. Some small
nations' entire Air Forces (Suriname springs to mind) had been
trained at Airman. But with new requirements, it's harder, and more
hassle, for foreigners to train in the USA. When Airman folded, at
least 66 students lost some or all of their money, but the
resulting lawsuit soon only had six plaintiffs, because the other
60 in the class were foreign and could not remain in the US on
their student visas once the school closed.
For experienced aviation-training hands, it was "deja vu all
over again," a near replay of the 2003 scandal when the Airline
Training Academy in Orlando, Florida closed down overnight, leaving
students in the lurch.
Meanwhile, Pan Am Closes A Location For A Different Reason
Pan Am International Flight
Academy, another aggressive advertiser, didn't close a
school or leave students in the lurch, but it did close a
campus.
After living through the weather of 04 in Florida, they decided
to bail in April 05... it worked out well for the school, as their
suburban Phoenix training operation kept going while a record
hurricane season ravaged Florida and the Gulf and Atlantic
coasts.
If The Schools Are Shaky, The Equipment Keeps Improving
We're seeing a paradox with new educational technology. Vendors
are keen to have it adopted, but pilots and instructors often
resist, and hornet swarms of salesmen are chasing few fleeing
customers. But that's mostly true about simulators.
In the airplane, everybody wants the latest, and that means
glass and GPS. It will also come to mean, very soon, NEXRAD
weather. Even the most callow student today knows that the FAA is
gathering up the NDBs one by one, soon to be followed by the VORs.
These are going the way of the four-directional low frequency
range, and will someday be something you can play greybeard
about.
("You flew the NDB? Big deal! I flew NDBs and LORAN! Arrrrr!
Nothing but NDBs and DME arcs between me and safety... there was a
headwind both ways and it followed me around the hold. Aye, men
were men in those days, sonny! And so were the women.")
That's why you have paradoxes like slick Avidyne flight decks in
110-knot Piper Warriors, and Garmin glass in 172s. In fifteen or
twenty years you probably won't be able to fly a regular six-pack
without specific training and an instructor endorsement, like you
need for a tailwheel now.
The glass panels will make better prepared pilots, and they'll
be safer to fly. the day there's an AD scrapping the last vacuum
pump in America will be a great day for flight safety, as it's the
most accident-prone thing we put in planes, apart from pilots.
Sport Training - Taking Off
It's been slow getting started, owing to the chicken-or-egg
conundrum, but now that we're starting to see some CFIs and Sport
Pilot examiners, we're starting to see some uptake on Sport Pilot
training. It's looking like 2006 will be a make-or-break year.
Safety And Training - A Cautionary Tale
An unusual lawsuit filed
in late May resulted from a very unusual training accident. Now,
primary training accidents -- fatal accidents, as opposed to solo
student undercarriage abuse -- are extremely uncommon to begin
with. Indeed, flight training is the safest thing we do under Part
91.
We are no great fans of the plaintiffs' bar here at Aero-News; I
suppose you could fairly say we are biased against tort lawyers,
and we will admit that. (This is new media. We will try to be fair,
but we won't feign an objectivity we don't really have; we'll level
with you). But in this case, there may be something to the
complaint, against American Flyers.
American Flyers is a venerable Midwestern flight training
operation that actually began as a charter and scheduled airline.
(Indeed, commercial pilots today take EKGs because the founder of
American Flyers, Reed Pigman, had The Big One on approach and
crashed in 1966. He had been the Beatles' pilot for their US
tours).
But in this case, an AF instructor took a novice pre-solo
private pilot student on long IFR cross-countries, and
during this untimely IFR training, they crashed and died. Attorney
Paul Marx, whose flying hours are a near match for the unfortunate
instructor's, thinks that a pre-solo student probably ought not to
be on instructional flights in conditions of 200 feet and 1/2
mile.
And There Are Those That Don't, and Say They DId (and get
CAUGHT)
To close on news of the weird, training figures in an unusual
court case. Lawyers charged, and a pilot admitted, that he'd
pencilwhipped his training records. "This entire
document is one big giant lie, correct?," the lawyer asked, and the
pilot admitted it. That'll leave a mark.
Still, better leave a mark in the courtroom (and on your FAA
record) than on the terrain.