Robert B. Barnes, the founder and CEO of the International Association of Flight Training Professionals (IATPF), died Sept. 29 following a stroke. Barnes created the organization to provide a touchstone for those involved in training to share best practices in the evolving vocation of teaching people to fly.”I considered Bob Barnes to be one of the brightest people I’ve ever worked with,” said AVweb publisher Tom Bliss. “He was a world business traveler, member of the Royal Aeronautics Society in the U.K.,the top student in his USAF Undergraduate Pilot Training Class (68-G) and was currently working with flight schools in the Middle East and Far East.”
Barnes was the owner of Robert B. Barnes Associates in Scottsdale. The company worked in aircraft modifications and flight training and also did technology consulting in the optical data storage and semiconductor industries. As a former USAF T-38 master instructor, Barnes’s heart was always in the right seat of a training aircraft. “I hope that Bob’s work at IAFTP to build a database of best practices in flight training and to develop a secure, electronic resume and database for flight school graduates worldwide will continue,” Bliss said.
