Education: ‘Too many choices’

“The signal-to-noise ratio has become a real problem,” said Steve Thorne, better known as “FlightChops,” a Canadian general aviation pilot whose YouTube chronicle of flight experiences has 330,000 followers. “The amount of aviation content has gone from virtually nonexistent a decade ago to overwhelming. There are almost too many choices.”

Online aviation content has become indispensable to student pilots learning to fly; seasoned pilots studying new-to-them aircraft and avionics systems; and the entire aviation community for keeping informed about industry news, regulatory changes, and the latest safety information. But where can GA pilots find the most relevant information? And how is online content likely to change the way pilots learn, stay proficient, and plan aviation adventures in the future?

Let’s start with paid online pilot education.

Industry leaders such as King Schools and Sporty’s Pilot Shop have long since done away with VHS tapes and DVDs, and they distribute all their coursework online. That material is available to customers using a wide variety of mobile and desktop computers, and buyers can study wherever and whenever they choose.

“The change allows for better products that allow more interaction,” said John Zimmerman, a Sporty’s vice president. “That’s messy and difficult for us. Every flight school, every student, is different, so we’ve got to make our courses available everywhere, on all devices, all the time. Our customers don’t just study at home, in the evenings, on desktop computers anymore. That’s just not how people live their lives these days.”

A growing library of coursework allows students to study for FAA knowledge tests, use automated flash cards, take practice exams, and even generate the FAA-required signoffs in their electronic logbooks at the end. Descriptions of maneuvers contain detailed graphics and in-cockpit video.

Even after students obtain their ratings, they have lifelong access to the online material so that they can brush up and review whenever they choose.

Sporty’s is steadily adding to its video library with experts such as Patty Wagstaff teaching aerobatics, and Garmin producing videos on the company’s own avionics products.

“We produce most of our videos ourselves,” Zimmerman said. “But it would be presumptuous for us to think we know everything. Patty is one of the world’s foremost experts in aerobatic flying and she writes her own scripts, and Garmin produces its own product videos.”

Sporty’s primary business is selling aviation hardware and accessories at its Ohio-based shop. It also operates a flight school where most of its aviation videos are recorded. But Zimmerman said its business units are largely independent.

“We’re not trying to be Amazon Prime,” he said, “so we’re not trying to lock you into our hardware business through our online education content. We want to run a great, standalone training business that helps our customers accomplish their goals. As long as we do that well, we’ll have a good chance of earning more of their business.”

Flight mastery

After they obtain their ratings, companies like PilotWorkshops seek out pilots for subscription-based flight education.

Mark Robidoux, a GA pilot in New Hampshire, started the paid education firm that creates detailed online scenarios in 2005 after he earned an instrument rating.

“I passed my FAA exam, but I still had so many questions about IFR flying that I really didn’t feel ready to launch into the murk. I know it’s a license to learn, but I wanted to hear from pilots who had vast amounts of real-world experience.”

PilotWorkshops creates detailed IFR and VFR scenarios with storylines, graphics, weather reports, charts, and aircraft performance information. It puts participants in the virtual cockpit and asks them to make difficult aeronautical decisions with the given set of circumstances. A panel of experts then reviews those choices, and each one says what they would do in the same situation, and more important, why. Subscribers can discuss or debate the merits of the reasoning behind the decision making in an online forum that’s refreshingly lively, informative, respectful, and sometimes funny.

PilotWorkshops has about 7,500 paid subscribers to its monthly scenarios; more than 60,000 customers for its books and online training guides, and more than 200,000 subscribers to its free aviation “tip of the week.”

“Our customers are serious about improving their flying—and we give them direct access to experts who can thoughtfully address their questions,” Robidoux said. “Our customers are hungry to build and maintain proficiency, and that drive to constantly learn and improve the way they fly creates a tight community.”

The next big step in aviation education, Robidoux said, is merging remote instruction with flight simulation.

“We already challenge pilots to think about what they would do in a variety of different scenarios,” he said. “The next big leap will be asking them to fly those scenarios in a sim. For training and proficiency purposes, that would make each lesson so realistic—especially for IFR flying.”

PilotWorkshops has already tested the waters and had CFII and content producer Ryan Koch work remotely via the internet with an instrument student on a personal computer elsewhere. The two did an entire IFR training course online. Then Doug Stewart, an FAA examiner, administered an online IFR mock checkride, just as he would have done in person.

“The student has done everything on the simulator that he’ll be required to do on a real IFR checkride,” Robidoux said. “And all of this has taken place before the IFR student even gets in an airplane with a CFII. I’ve got to think the rest of his IFR training will go smoothly because he already understands so much about the IFR system already.”

Personal journey

Thorne of FlightChops is a filmmaker whose more than 230 videos offered free on YouTube focus on his own aviation learning. They show his not-always-pretty transformation from low-time private pilot in 2005 to multiengine, seaplane, aerobatic, and tailwheel pilot today.

Thorne takes pains to point out that he’s not a flight instructor, and his videos highlight his own gritty and sustained efforts to become a better pilot—including candid assessments and documentation of mistakes that can be helpful to fellow pilots learning similar material.

“I started on this path by making the kind of aviation videos I wanted to see,” Thorne said. “There was no ad revenue and no real plan at first. I had a day job and made aviation videos on a home editing suite at night.”

Thorne learned to fly in the 1990s, then set aviation aside for several years for the normal reasons: marriage, starting a family, a demanding career as a videographer mostly making reality TV shows and music videos.

With his wife’s encouragement, he resumed flying in 2009 at the same time that tiny point-of-view cameras and online video sharing were changing the way people share information. Thorne started recording his flights with a GoPro camera, then reviewing the images alone in post-flight debriefing sessions.

“On a sightseeing flight around Toronto, I wondered why the air traffic controller had seemed annoyed with me,” he said. “It wasn’t until the GoPro debrief that I realized I had missed a few radio calls because my passenger was talking at the time. I learned from that experience and that changed my passenger briefings ever since.”

Thorne launched FlightChops in 2013 as a sideline to contract videography. The advent of YouTube and online ads made it possible for Thorne to get paid for aviation videos, and he jumped into it fulltime in 2015.

“It was a real case of ‘build it and they will come,’” he said. “POV cameras made it possible for me to record and share what I was learning about flying—and I was genuinely surprised to find out there was an audience for it.”

Thorne’s video about a flight in Fifi, the Commemorative Air Force B–29 bomber, has more than 8 million views. Other videos chronicle his tailwheel training in the Piper PA–18 Super Cub, multiengine, seaplane, and instrument training, Coast Guard swim training, and flights in vintage aircraft and warbirds.

Thorne, the grandson of a World War II Spitfire pilot, also flies a North American T–6/Harvard in Canada, and he’s considering becoming a flight instructor.

To Thorne’s surprise, many FlightChops viewers are professional pilots, not the fellow hobbyists he expected to attract.

But Thorne says his perspective as a student of aviation won’t change—and he’ll keep including his foibles, setbacks, and the unexpected twists and turns that take place in learning about new aspects of aviation.

“I’m still the same guy I’ve always been,” he said. “I’m a weekend warrior who wants to become a better pilot, and I’m a storyteller with the skills that allow me to share what I’m learning along the way.”

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