Flight Schools

Eight general aviation advocacy groups signed onto a letter this week protesting a bill now in the House that would put a cap on payments to veterans in flight-training programs. Other education tracks are not subject to caps, the advocates said. “Capping funds available for flight-training degree programs virtually guarantees that veterans seeking to use […]

Three Britons and a man from Vietnam were killed in the midair collision of a small helicopter and a Cessna 152 on Friday. Authorities haven’t officially released any names but well-known helicopter instructor Capt. Mike Green was with a student aboard the Guimbal Cabri training helicopter when it and the 152 collided in Buckinghamshire. Both […]

Textron Aviation announced this week it will continue its Top Hawk program for 2018, providing a new Cessna Skyhawk 172 to five university programs for use in their flight training and recruiting efforts. “As the Top Hawk program enters its fourth year, we’re proud to build on a program that has allowed us to support […]

I mostly make my living as a flight instructor, so I often fly with ten or more students in a week. Not all are “student pilots” in the FAA sense of the term, but they’re all flying with me to get instruction of some sort. They’re seeking new certificates, instrument ratings, tailwheel transitions or they’re […]

If I were an airplane salesman, I would starve to death. Airplanes that I think have no prayer of selling fly out of the factory almost faster than they can be produced. One of these was Diamond’s DA42, which I thought was a long shot. The DA62, one of the best GA airplanes ever, in […]

Citing the growing global pilot shortage, the University of North Dakota on Wednesday announced it has established a $1.5 million scholarship endowment for high-achieving students to earn their wings. The endowment is funded by $500,000 contributions from the nonprofit UND Aerospace Foundation, UND Promise Scholarship Program and the James C. Ray Foundation. The scholarships will […]

Udacity, an online training site based in Silicon Valley, is now offering a “Flying Car Nanodegree” program, but notes that “the idea of a flying car is a metaphor for a new vision for the future of smart transportation.” The new program aims to teach a new generation of engineers the skills they’ll need to […]

I got an email this week from a reader on the cusp of making a small fleet purchase for a few flight schools. I was asked for an opinion on the various choices in the training market. The more you think about this, the more difficult the decision actually is. There’s simply no perfect airplane […]

The Icon A5 has been, for years, a press darling. Experienced journalists fresh off assignments flying multi-million dollar jets gushed over a pre-production light sport airplanes. Seriously? Icon said I could try to answer that question for myself, but only if I really flew the airplane and understood the customer experience. “Spend four days at […]

ATP Flight School, in Florida, has ordered 15 Skyhawks to add to its training fleet, which already includes 115 of the airplanes, Textron Aviation announced this week at EAA AirVenture. Deliveries of the new Skyhawks, each equipped with Garmin G1000 NXi avionics and an angle-of-attack display, will begin in the third quarter. “With demand for […]