AOPA Best Flight School 2014: Paragon Flight

It’s a beautiful Saturday morning at Page Field in Fort Myers, Florida, and the office at Paragon Flight is crowded with young flight instructors. Nothing unusual about that—the best flying is done early in the morning when the Southwest Florida heat hasn’t yet ignited and the attendant bumpy thermals haven’t started to pop. What is unusual is that no students are to be seen meticulously preflighting any of the school’s fleet of training airplanes. That won’t happen until 8 a.m, after the school’s monthly staff meeting. Successfully herding a dozen young flight instructors into the office for an early morning meeting before tackling a long day of instructing is indicative of why Paragon Flight now proudly displays an impressive metal sculpture proclaiming it as AOPA’s Best Flight School for 2014.

The meeting, called 7/7 because it’s held at 7 a.m. on the seventh day of each month, is led by Chief Flight Instructor Jeffrey Wolf and Paragon Flight CEO Chris Schoensee. They brief the instructor corps on news of the day, including a small increase in aircraft rental fees—some of which will flow into instructors’ pockets. Schoensee and Wolf invite questions, and they listen. “We always have an open door, but we also try to have a full staff meeting,” Schoensee says. “7/7 is a communications meeting. Communication is so important—with our clients, and between coworkers.”

If there is an overarching theme to that emphasis on communicating, it is customer service. “We live, eat, and breathe customer service. We want our instructors to have great relationships with their clients. Our culture is always focusing on giving customers the best experience possible,” Schoensee says.

Paragon concentrates on training individuals rather than pursuing prepaid ab initio professional-pilot training contracts, usually for foreign students, which is common throughout Florida. “Our business model is superb one-on-one training,” Schoensee says.

“Most of our clients are not career-oriented pilots,” Wolf explains. “They enjoy flying for fun. They are successful people. Many are business owners. They can see it when someone is not treating customers well. They can go anywhere they want to get training, so if they are not enjoying it here, they will leave.”

Paragon instructors use a defined, structured approach to training that covers what to do when the student walks in the door, while preflighting, when in the air, and the postflight debrief, according to Wolf. “It’s all very organized.” Several times a week Assistant Chief Flight Instructor Kelsey Mulloy hops on a training flight as a back-seat observer “to make sure the instructor is drinking the Kool-Aid, doing it the way we want it done,” Wolf says.

A handful of Paragon’s 12 full-time instructors are home grown, having started there as primary students. “I like that because we can teach them the way we like them to teach,” Wolf says. “It’s hard to reverse bad habits developed elsewhere.”

The good habits Wolf and Schoensee want their instructors to embrace are articulated in the school’s mission statement, as stated on the school’s website (www.paragonflight.com):

• We thrive on customer satisfaction. We will provide you with the highest-quality experience possible, every time you fly. Since flying is all about fun and freedom, the fun and freedom starts here.

• Loyalty is our goal. We will provide you with the highest-quality training, services, and products that offer continuous value for many years to come.

• Trust is our foundation. Our relationship with you will be built upon honesty, professionalism, hard work, and integrity.

• Our guarantee is unbreakable. If, for any reason, you aren’t satisfied with any aspect of your flying experience, we’ll do everything possible to correct it quickly and to your satisfaction.

That website is Paragon’s only major marketing effort. “We do search-engine optimization to win the Google search,” Wolf says. “When someone types in ‘Florida flight training,’ we will be in the top five search results,” he adds. Schoensee says he composed the website while he was a primary student. “I tried to write it from the perspective of someone who is considering flight training.”

Paragon was founded in 2006 by Schoensee’s father, Kevin, who had bought a new Garmin G1000-equipped Mooney to travel between his homes in Michigan and Southwest Florida. When he sought advanced training at a Fort Myers flight school, he found it lacking in both the quality of the equipment and its customer service. “So he bought it,” says Chris Schoensee, and immediately purchased three new G1000-equipped Cessna 172s.

Schoensee, who also serves as chief operating officer of Paragon Technologies, his father’s Detroit-based industrial equipment repair company, soon became involved in the Fort Myers aviation division. Today Schoensee; his wife, Sarah; and Wolf are co-owners of Paragon Flight.

Paragon’s fleet includes the three original 172s, three more G1000-equipped 172s acquired later, a Flight Design CTLS Light Sport aircraft (they had two, but sold one), a G950-equipped Tecnam P2006T Rotax-powered twin, a G1000-equipped Cessna 206, and a high-performance G1000 Cessna Corvalis TTX. The 172s are the principal training aircraft for primary students; the CTLS has a small core of rental devotees; the Tecnam is used for multiengine training and rental; and the 206 is used for advanced checkouts and rentals. The 206 and Corvalis are leasebacks from the same owner, and both are on Paragon’s Part 135 charter certificate.

The fleet collectively logs about 600 hours monthly through most of the year, increasing to about 800 hours monthly during the busy winter season. Paragon also has a Redbird FMX flight simulator that is used to introduce students to instrument approaches and work on specific skills such as crosswinds and emergency procedures. “The Redbird simulator is a win-win for everyone,” Wolf says. “It’s cheaper for the school to operate and for students to rent.”

The plan is to incorporate it into the full training curriculum, but give students the choice of using the simulator as much as permissible or staying with the aircraft. Paragon plans to build a 4,000-square-foot addition to its leased office/hangar facility to accommodate the simulator, which currently sits on the hangar floor.

Most Paragon students sign up for formal instruction after taking a $99 introductory flight. “We push it,” Wolf says. “We don’t want someone to commit to purchasing the ground-school program without first taking a test drive. You wouldn’t buy a car without test driving it; it’s the same with flight training.”

The school offers a Part 141-approved curriculum for primary, instrument, and commercial training, and students have a choice of going that route or following a personalized Part 61 training program.

Paragon encourages social interaction. The school organizes regular Bahamas and Key West fly-outs; hosts a customer appreciation event each spring for about 250 people, each of whom donates canned food to a local charity; and stages a poker tournament to raise money for a charity of choice. It is a sponsor of the annual Page Field Aviation Day open house.

The school enjoys some built-in advantages that contribute to its success. First there’s the usually spectacular Southwest Florida weather. “We can pretty much count on flying every day,” Wolf says.

Second, it operates from a well-appointed and well-managed airport. Page Field (FMY) has two intersecting runways; an ILS and three GPS WAAS approaches; an air traffic control tower; self-serve fuel; a top-notch maintenance shop, Switlik Aviation; and avionics sales and service center, Tomlinson Avionics. Paragon’s director of maintenance, Tony Pomponio, handles most maintenance tasks in-house but calls on Switlik and Tomlinson when necessary.

Page Field and its Class D airspace sit underneath the Class C airspace associated with Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW), which lies seven miles to the southeast. Paragon students quickly learn to use the radio. A typical flight begins with listening to the Fort Myers ATIS broadcast; calling ground control for taxi clearance; and, if desired, a frequency and squawk code for traffic advisories from RSW Approach Control; checking in with the Fort Myers tower controller for takeoff clearance; and after takeoff switching to approach control.

Paragon cites the Lee County Port Authority, which operates Page Field, as an asset. Minimum standards imposed by the Port Authority specify that airport businesses operate from approved facilities and carry adequate insurance, among other requirements. Those minimum standards function to keep so-called “tailgate” competitors with no overhead costs from establishing a beachhead with cut-rate pricing, and throttling established tenants. “It makes for a fair fight,” Wolf says.

With 15 employees, a 10-aircraft fleet valued at $2.5 million to $3 million, and 47,557 gallons of 100LL and 2,405 gallons of unleaded fuel purchased at Fort Myers in 2014, Paragon is the largest aeronautical services provider on the field.

“They are one of the great tenants on the airport,” comments Barry Bratton, director of general aviation for the Lee County Port Authority. “I have never heard anything but positive comments from their customers. They are wowed by Paragon’s service.”

Paragon has partnered with a local private high school to offer a four-year aviation-training program. In year one students are introduced to basic three-axis control using computer software and consoles. Year two focuses on prep for the private pilot knowledge test. In year three the high school pays for an introductory flight, and students spend time in an airplane and a regional jet-based simulator. In year four students can receive academic credit for taking flight instruction. The program is in its third year with 22 students enrolled, and Wolf believes that five or six will eventually enter a professional pilot-training program.

Paragon recently reached an agreement with Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, that will permit Paragon customers to study online for an aviation-related degree from Liberty.

“If the instructor is providing quality instruction, and the student enjoys being with the instructor, that’s all we can ask,” Wolf says. “There’s no secret sauce here,” Schoensee adds. “We’re just human and enthusiastic. How cool is it to have someone come in and say they’ve just sold their business, they’ve always wanted to learn to fly, and they’ve chosen us to train them? That’s as good as it gets in business, and we are blessed that we get to do that every day.”