Things changed after flight instructor Ken Davies attended AOPA’s Spokane, Washington, regional fly-in in 2014. There he attended a Rusty Pilots seminar and talked to AOPA You Can Fly staffers, and it piqued both his enthusiasm and his business sense. Davies came away fired up with a new commitment. By the end of 2014 he’d run two Rusty Pilots Seminars at his FBO—Cascade Aviation at the Burlington, Washington Airport—and was off and running.
“I had 35 people at the first Rusty Pilots seminar I held, which was more than I expected,” Davies said. Then he ran three seminars in 2015, three more in 2016, and one more this year.
Davies uses an email list, the SocialFlight app, and—most recently—Instagram to publicize his seminars. The result: He’s had more than 150 total attendees, including several walk-ins and some who had driven as far as 100 miles.
All Rusty Pilots seminars are inspirational, but Davies has a good track record. Numerous pilots have completed flight reviews and are back flying again.
More than 7,500 people are expected to attend Rusty Pilots seminars this year.Then there’s the 17-year-old who “loved every minute” of the seminar—and started flying lessons immediately thereafter. Other attendees returned to the airport the following day to get some dual instruction. Of course, this has all been good business for Cascade Aviation.
BasicMed is a 20-minute element in the Rusty Pilots program that Davies says appeals to the older pilots. Of all the topics covered, which was the most vexing? “No doubt about it—it’s airspace,” he said. “The change to Class A, B, C, and all the others is all completely new to them.”
Rusty Pilots seminars have brought thousands of pilots back to active flying. With instructors like Davies it’s easy to see why they are so vital to AOPA’s mission to grow the pilot population.
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