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AOPA launches student pilot support tool

Students have a powerful new tool available to help them track the progress of their flight training with AOPA’s new MyFlightTraining website. MyFlightTraining takes the content of Flight Training magazine and personalizes it for students anywhere in the flight training curriculum.

The site is based on the feedback AOPA received in its research about the ideal flight training experience. That report found that students have an overwhelming desire for information about the overall flight training process, access to ongoing resources, and a sense of community, among other things. MyFlightTraining addresses these points with a variety of features.

Open only to student pilots, the site tracks a participant’s progress with six key milestones—first flight, the student pilot certificate, solo, the knowledge test, solo cross-countries, and the practical test. Students come to the site and enter the successful completion of a milestone. By doing so, a wealth of additional content opens up about the next hurdle in training. Through online resources and access to the pilot information center, students will have additional support tools available to them 24/7.

The milestones help to break the flight training journey down into manageable stages, while making sure that in addition to the end goal of a pilot certificate, other successes along the way are acknowledged and celebrated.

Anyone who completes an introductory flight will be offered a free logbook. After obtaining a student pilot certificate, a student will have the opportunity to get a free T-shirt to wear during his or her first solo that features a dotted line on the back of the shirt for an instructor to cut, keeping the “shirt tail” tradition alive. There also is a monthly sweepstakes where any student who enters a milestone could win $1,000 toward flight training or one of four $100 gift certificates from ASA, Jeppesen, King Schools, and Sporty’s Pilot Shop.

In order to address the issue of building community among students, participants can upload photos and details of their milestones to be shared on MyFlightTraining, their own Facebook page, or the Flight Training Facebook page.

MyFlightTraining is completely free and open to any student pilot. Participants don’t have to be AOPA members to join. Those who are no longer students can view a demonstration that details the site.

Ian J. Twombly
Ian J. Twombly
Ian J. Twombly is senior content producer for AOPA Media.

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