AOPA Best Flight Instructor 2014: It's elementary

When you walk into a flight school and are assigned an instructor, Spencer Watson is the kind of instructor you should hope to be paired with.

Watson is AOPA’s 2014 Flight Instructor of the Year. An air traffic controller by trade, he has been teaching for more than 15 years, occasionally on a full-time basis, but primarily as a part-time instructor. Currently with Aviation Adventures in Manassas, Virginia, Watson’s poll results read like a how-to book on the basics of flight instruction.

The characteristics that make a good flight instructor are more straightforward than you might think. He must be knowledgeable, responsible, a passionate teacher, and an advocate for aviation. Most of all, he must be precisely focused on his students’ success.

These are the traits that define Watson, an instructor who doesn’t teach for the money or the experience. “I would do it for free if I could,” he says. Watson teaches simply because he loves it, and it allows him to pursue his passion, which is introducing people to aviation.

Watson began his aviation career in college, earning his certificates and ratings while in Navy ROTC. After graduating, he joined the military, and one disappointing eye test later, decided to pursue an aviation career in the Air Force. That led him to air traffic control, which he worked on active duty. His wife is an Air Force officer, a job that gives him the opportunity to teach at a range of schools as they move around the country. The Aviation Adventures gig began in 2012.

The path Watson has chosen is at least partially responsible for his success. Spending the day at an office job as an air traffic control liaison for the military maintains his ongoing interest in aviation, but it doesn’t fulfill his desire to fly. For that, he spends evenings and weekends at the airport. It also means he doesn’t need to instruct. Watson speaks passionately about what matters most to his students and what he does to try to better serve their needs.

In poll questions where Watson’s students could answer verbatim, they wrote glowingly of his depth of knowledge and passion to share it. “Spence really goes out of his way to fully research topics,” one student said. I asked Watson about this, and he says he will read aviation materials in the evenings before lessons to make sure he’s clear on the information. He also sits in the airplanes and works with avionics or flows. “I have no tolerance for people who aren’t prepared when they are charging the student,” he says.

But he’s also the first to admit he doesn’t know everything, a testament to his obvious humility. He’ll gladly say he doesn’t know the answer to a question, but that “there should be very few of those cases on a lesson.” It’s a reason to hit the books, he says. On New Year’s Day every year, he sits back to take stock of what he’s learned in the previous year, and each time he says he’s amazed how he’s grown as instructor—something that clearly energizes him.

This interest in growth and enthusiasm for learning has led him to be the school’s in-house Bonanza expert. It’s not something that he actively sought in an effort to get more students. That’s not his style. It started because his father owns a Cessna 182 with a Continental IO-520, so he understands how to manage a big-bore engine. Add in a few hundred hours of Beechcraft Baron time, and it was only natural he would fly the school’s beautiful 1999 Bonanza. And to do that, he knew he’d have to learn it inside and out, which he did. One student said Watson knew the airplane so well it seemed like he owned it. He can recite the names of avionics like a dealer.

Although the desire to be fair to his students and give them good service is the reason to maintain his expertise and be prepared for every lesson, Watson’s real passion is his desire to make aviation a welcoming and inclusive place. “The thing I love the most is seeing people go from feeling not welcome to confident pilot,” he says. “I love it when they start telling me what to do.”

Watson cringes when he tells stories of people at airports with their feet up, leaning back in the chair, who aren’t welcoming. “I’m trying to counter that as aggressively as I can,” he says.

His serious approach to the job is counter to his outgoing, friendly personality. One student said he’s the friendliest instructor in the school. That’s easy to believe. He makes you feel like his best friend minutes after meeting.

True to form, winning the award embarrasses him. He thought it was a joke when he heard. Staff like to tease him at the school, which has more than its share of AOPA Flight Training Excellence Awards. Watson says he’s come to terms with it, for one primary reason: “I’m happy because my students are happy.”