The instructors from the FlightSafety International Academy at Vero Beach, Florida, obvious in their crisp epauleted uniforms, fanned out through the Orlando Convention Center exhibit hall during the National Business Aviation Association meeting. They were bright eyed and enthusiastic, particularly considering their early, pre-dawn wheels-up departure for the bus trip from their Vero Beach campus.
For many of the instructors-who were planning on professional pilot careers-the visit to the NBAA hall was their first brush with business aviation and the career advantages it offers. Although they complained they didn't have enough time to peruse the exhibits, the instructors were obviously impressed with the alternative that a corporate aviation career offered to flying for an airline. Advantages they cited included the opportunity, in most cases, to fly brand-new airplanes with the latest in avionics, the variety of destinations, the chance to be directly and intimately involved with the country's movers and shakers and the ability to help them to do their moving and shaking.
The instructors, most of whom are themselves graduates of the Academy, are each responsible for training three to four students. A total of slightly fewer than 100 instructors is employed to teach the 300 or so students currently enrolled at the Academy. Of the 300 students, about 10 to 15 percent are women, and about 10 percent of the instructors are women.
A new class of students enters the Academy each month. When students first arrive, they go through a four-week private pilot ground school course as a group. Students who already have their private license are allowed to audit a two-week private pilot review class that ensures they meet the school's standards. Typically, during the second week of the ground school each of the students is assigned an instructor who will reinforce the ground school training and with whom they'll do all their flight training while at the academy.
The majority of the students have already completed their four-year college degree before they arrive at FlightSafety. Those with two-year degrees are encouraged to complete their college coursework, so even if an airline doesn't require a four-year degree, they'll have something to fall back on if for some reason their dream of becoming a professional pilot comes a cropper. One method that's recommended is through Embry Riddle Aeronautical University's distance learning program.
About half the academy students come to FlightSafety in order to make a change in their professional careers. The decision to change careers is apparently being fostered by lifelong dreams and encouraged by the number of the current airline pilots who will retire in the next several years and the low interest rates for loans to fund training. A recent class included students who had been flight attendants, divorce lawyers, pharmacists, teachers, computer programmers, website designers, paramedics and flight nurses. The median age of students attending the Academy is between 26 and 27 years old. Approximately one-third of the students are married, and some come to Florida with their children. During a recent visit, there were two married couples in which both partners were taking training.
