AOPA Project Pilot

AOPA Project Pilot mentors share long-distance experiences

The spirit of AOPA's ongoing Project Pilot program was captured recently by several Project Pilot mentors who invited their student- pilot proteges to participate in cross-country flights to the EAA International Sport Aviation Convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, during late July and early August. Many more are expected to plan similar trips to AOPA Expo '95 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, later this month.

Some of these were cross-country flights in the transcontinental sense of the word, or nearly so.

AOPA's Project Pilot, launched last year to bring 10,000 prospective pilot candidates into general aviation, achieved that goal before its first anniversary on April 1 and is well into its second year. In the program, volunteer AOPA member mentors support and encourage their nominees through the flight training process. Additional nominations are encouraged, and all Project Pilot fees have been waived through 1995. By early September, nearly 11,500 AOPA members had signed up to mentor more than 12,000 student pilot candidates.

Hal Ellis of Alamogordo, New Mexico, a CFI and an AOPA Project Pilot Instructor participant, brought David Stone along on the nine-hour flight in a Cessna 182. "He made me navigate the whole way," said Stone, also of Alamogordo. "That was pretty cool."

Both Ellis and Stone are in the Air Force, serving in the 4th Space Warning Squadron, and fly from the Holloman Air Force Base Aero Club in New Mexico. "We're too good friends not to do the mentor thing," explained Ellis, a pilot since 1981 who has been instructing for only a year and a half.

Stone received his private pilot certificate in February. He said that he had wanted to learn to fly for a long time but couldn't do so as a poor college student. "I'll definitely pursue an instrument rating. I don't know if I'll go beyond that. I do want to build an airplane — I've got the bug," he said. Stone spent time at Oshkosh in aircraft construction seminars and is eying the SkyStar Kitfox, which he believes would be a "good airplane to fool around in. I just fly for enjoyment, and there's no better way to start the day than to take off at sunrise and fly around while it's cool."

They trained together in a challenging environment — flying from a busy airport with high-performance military aircraft, at high elevations, with abundant mountains, wind, and restricted airspace. "A 4,092-foot elevation plus 105-degree-Fahrenheit temperatures put the density altitude up there," Ellis said. "And it's always bumpy." One training flight included an in-flight emergency, when vapor lock necessitated a forced landing on a dirt field in the mountains.

"One thing I've noticed, from an instructor's perspective, is that we're thinking the same — reaching for the same knobs, making the same decisions," Ellis said. "It's like looking in a mirror."

"It's kind of scary that I might grow up to be like Hal, too," Stone joked. Even though Stone has completed his primary flight training, he said that he and Ellis still do a lot of recreational flying together.

Leon Peele of Albemarle, North Carolina, who earned his pilot certificate in 1982, invited Larry Phillips, also of Albemarle, to join him in a Piper Cherokee 235 for the flight to Oshkosh. They paused in Chicago on the way. "We just wanted to land at Meigs Field," Peele explained.

Peele, who is Phillips' dentist, invited his patient to join him on a Saturday flight to Burlington, North Carolina, about two years ago. "He had a pretty good idea then that I was interested," Phillips recalled. "I had contemplated taking flying lessons for some time."

Peele is also mentoring two other private pilot candidates, one of whom is already taking lessons. The mentor believes Phillips is a good candidate. "He has some advantages — he's single, and he's got the time and money to do it. I hate to see situations where people have the burning desire to do something but don't have the time or the money. I think Larry wants to fly more than the instructor can (fly with him)," Peele said, explaining that there is only one instructor at Albemarle's Stanly County Airport.

Phillips began his flight training in February and has logged 38 hours. "I guess most of the questions I ask are about what's a normal rate of progress," he said. He is also interested in cross-country technique and is beginning to ask questions about the checkride. "I'll be looking at that in two or three months."

Phillips did the flight planning for their flight to Wisconsin. "The farthest he'd been was about 50 miles. We got him out of the state," Peele said. "The weather (on the way to Oshkosh) was bad in Cincinnati. We had to redo the flight plan in the air — that was a good experience for him."

"I got a lot of exposure to auctioneer talk. That's what I call fast-talking controllers," said Phillips, who enjoyed the flight in the IFR environment with Peele.

The two pilots talk every couple of weeks. "A lot of our conversations are just me asking him if he wants to fly someplace," Peele said.

Phillips said that the AOPA Project Pilot materials he received were helpful and answered a lot of the questions he had about flight training. "The kit came at a good point in my training," he said. "And having someone for encouragement is a very good thing."

Douglas Rentmeester, a full-time flight instructor based at French Valley Airport in Murrieta, California, flew to Oshkosh with student pilot Linda Crone in her 1975 Cessna Cardinal RG. An AOPA Project Pilot Instructor participant, he said they put 27 hours on the airplane during the trip.

"We shared the flying duties on the way to Wisconsin, but I think one of her main goals was seeing the country," explained Rentmeester, who said exposing Crone to the IFR environment was one of his primary goals on the journey. "I've been teaching for more than three years, and you can't really come up with a lesson plan for something like that."

Not all Project Pilot mentors and students have the flexibility to leave home for week-long flights. But they have achieved similar results by sharing shorter flights, whether business trips across the state or hops to the next airport for lunch.

To enroll someone in Project Pilot or for more information, call 800/USA-AOPA.

Selling Yourself

How to attract and retain students

Six months after it was launched, Project Pilot Instructor — the second phase of AOPA's successful Project Pilot program — has racked up impressive numbers. Some 3,600 participating flight instructors have nominated more than 15,000 of their students in the program. Project Pilot Instructor, which has become the nation's largest group of active flight instructors, provides CFIs with training aids, guidance, and a frequent flier-style program rewarding instructors for the number of students flying.

AOPA recently named noted trainer and motivational speaker Ralph Hood as national CFI marketing mentor for the program. Hood will spearhead AOPA's "CFI Success Program," advising the nation's flight instructors in a key area not covered in training for the instructor certificate — attracting and retaining students.

Hood will present a special program on that topic during "CFI Day" — Friday, October 21 — at AOPA Expo '95 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Instructors are very interested in the topic. "What I'm looking forward to the most [about Project Pilot Instructor] is the marketing part," said flight instructor Hal Ellis of Alamogordo, New Mexico. "We have a lot of student starts, but not a lot of finishes." A flight instructor for 18 months, Ellis said he's had 12 students begin flight training; three have earned their certificates, but only four of the others are still flying.

Hood said two things need to happen to reverse the downward trend in student pilot starts: Instructors need to take better care of the students they have, and they need to find new students.

Hood said there are three things instructors can do. First, treat existing contacts better — particularly walk-ins and telephone callers. "That's the obvious first place to improve. Treat them like customers, like they'd wandered into a ski resort or a yacht club. Don't take walk-ins to the office. Take them on a tour of the airport- -they've already told us they want excitement and adventure. We've got a whole airport that will be exciting to them."

Second, he said, keep them flying once you get them. "Get them to completion and then keep them flying. One of the things that we're lacking in aviation, unlike skiing, is something for the whole family." Hood knows an instructor and FBO operator in Kentucky who plans social trips; she fills several rental aircraft and everyone goes to a resort destination. Another airport, near Huntsville, Alabama, has a pot-luck lunch every Saturday.

Finally, Hood suggests, go out and recruit people. "This involves some telephone calls, some advertising, some direct mail. We really need to spread the word about general aviation so that we can compete with other activities" such as jet skiing, snow skiing, snowmobiling, scuba diving, and motorcycling, Hood said. "People are spending all this money on things that are less practical and less 'doable' than general aviation. We've got a recreational activity that's both more practical and more 'doable.'

"It's not that we're losing the comparison," he commented. "We're not presenting general aviation to this affluent market."

These people aren't looking for the easy way out, Hood said; they want excitement and adventure. "The weakness we have is our CFIs — nobody's training them to sell, and nobody's paying them to sell. I really believe they need to do this for their own future in aviation." Hood knows several flight instructors who have progressed far beyond typical CFI duties because they learned the business and demonstrated initiative.

Production is nearing completion on a marketing videotape for CFIs participating in Project Pilot Instructor. The video will be used as a PilotsPlus Rewards premium. Other awards in the frequent flier-style program include caps, videotapes, a GPS in-flight reference guide, and entries in this year's First New 172 sweepstakes.

The Project Pilot instructor who submits the largest number of qualified student names between October 1 and March 31 will win a six-day, King Air 200 series simulator course from FlightSafety International, valued at more than $10,000.