Flight Schools

[JustFly]

I was asked to see if this was true. It looks like there is going to be a pilot shortage for a variety of reasons, one being that there are less flight schools out there and that the number is shrinking. I have never given it much thought and was wondering if anybody might be able to come up with some statistics to prove (or disprove) this.

Does anybody have any info?

Thanks,

 

[SPilot]

Not entirely relevant statistic, I'm sure someone will find something better. Until then. From the FAA website.

Private Pilot Airplane Written Test Volume Statistic:
2006: 27,491
2005: 28,132
2004: 29,851
2003: 31,635
2002: 34,738
About 20% reduction in five years.

Commercial Pilot Written Tests:
2006: 7,697
2005: 8,018
2004: 8,408
2003: 8,573
2002: 10,427
About 26% reduction in five years.

Initial Private Certificates Issued:
[FONT=Univers (W1)]2006[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]2005[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]2004[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]2003[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]2002[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]2001[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]2000[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]1999[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]1998[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]1997[/FONT]
[FONT=Univers (W1)]20,217[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]20,889[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]23,031[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]23,866[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]28,659[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]25,372[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]27,223[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]24,630[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]26,297[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]21,552[/FONT]

Initial Commercial Certificates Issued:
[FONT=Univers (W1)]2006[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]2005[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]2004[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]2003[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]2002[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]2001[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]2000[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]1999[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]1998[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]1997[/FONT]

[FONT=Univers (W1)]8,687[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]8,834[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]9,836[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]9,670[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]12,299[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]11,499[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]11,213[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]9,737[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]10,042[/FONT] [FONT=Univers (W1)]8,988[/FONT]

2002-2006 reduction in commercial certificates issued: 29%
2002-2006 reduction in private certificates issued: 29%

Number of active flight instructor certificates have been increasing steadily though.

 

[rfresh]

Generally speaking, there has always been a "pilot shortage" - most of the time started by one flight school or another.

But to answer your question a pilot shortage isn't created by a lack of flight schools - it's created by the demand for pilots by the companies who hire them - the majors on down the ladder.

 

[siucavflight]

I dont think that there are less people learning to fly because flight schools are closing.
I think that flight schools are closing because less people want to learn how to fly.

 

[Lazy8]

I dont think that there are less people learning to fly because flight schools are closing.
I think that flight schools are closing because less people want to learn how to fly.

I think less people can afford to learn how to fly. In 1998 when I started you could get a Private certificate for $3000. Now it's more like $8,000-$11,000 and it's going up every few months.

 

[JustFly]

Thanks for the info, although it wasn't really anything I didn't know. My question was not why they close or do the closings cause pilot shortages. My question should have been worded differently - how many flight schools are there today compared to years past. Are there less today that a year ago or several years ago and are there statistics to back that up.

Thanks again.

 

[rfresh]

Yes there are less flight schools today than there were several years ago. For those of us who have been flying for years, we've seen it for ourselves - we don't need statistics to tell us that.

 

[NuGuy]

Heyas,

Siuc and rfresh are right on the mark. Anyone who's been around the biz more than one cycle can tell you that the number of schools has just about evaporated.

Back when I was doing the CFI thing (early 1990s), you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a school of some kind.

Sure, there was Flightsafety, UND, and Riddle. Comair was just hitting it's stride, but the really big volume came from the oversized Mom-n-pops like Bolivar, Shields, SEFA, etc. At their peak, most of these places had 40+ airplanes, and some were closer to 80+.

Riddle and UND took 4 years to put out a pilot. Flightsafety ran their program at a leisurely pace, as did American Flyers (they had a HUGE operation in Fort Lauderdale). They were faster than a 4 year school, but they had a LOT of formal academics in their programs, and it still took a fair bit to get through.

But the Mom-n-pops were squeezing out tons of people every 90-120 days. Comair, which grew out from this concept, was among the first places to go big time with it.

Another huge source of student starts were FBOs. When I was learning to fly, any FBO that didn't have 8-12 aircraft on their rental line was a rinky dink operation.

The thing to understand is that the flight training market always lags what's going on in the industry, usually by about 12 - 18 months. That's about how long it takes for the "pipeline" to change to meet whatever new demands there are. Usually in a down cycle, the people in the pipeline get pretty jacked.

But there's a number of things at work here:

The last big furlough bubble before 9/11 ran from around 91 (Gulf War 1) to around the end of 96. Towards the end of 93 and into 94, you saw the most, if not all, of the mom-n-pops hit the skids. Bolivar went bust almost overnight.

Most, if not all, of the FBOs got out of the flight training/rental business (mostly for insurance/liability reasons). Most were content to rent out space to another operator that had all the risk. Without the subsidy that fuel sales and maintenence provided, most places were on pretty shakey ground. The extra layer of separation from school to FBO made aircraft leasebacks (the bread and butter of any rental operation) a really bad deal financially for the owners, so the source of "cheap" rentals vanished. Now the schools had to OWN or finance their aircraft, and this means $$$, if they could aford it at all. This is the primary reason rental prices are large and selection stinks today.

The mom-n-pops and the FBOs never made it back in the boom times of 97 and on. The "mega" schools had come on the scene, and it was tough to compete with the media blasting that most of these places put out. And sources of cheap aircraft had dried up.

When 9/11 hit, the BIG BIG BIG spike in cost came from insurance. Not just direct insurance, but the insurance the FBO paid, your mechanic paid and on down the line. All of this added up to really blast the cost of flying into orbit.

Up until then, you could still find 152s/172s in the 45-65 dollar range. Now the bottom basement is in the high 90s if not the low 100s.

11 grand for a private is crazy. In the 90's you could just about do your full set of ratings for 12-14k

People have learned that there is NO payout at the end of the rainbow. Even if there was, there is no longer the civilian training infrastructure in place to really train lots of pilots. The previous cycles have pretty much burned through the hordes of cheap aircraft (152s/172s from the late 70s), and now everything is high dollar, so even if there were places, no one could afford it.

Plus the pipeline is empty of instructors. Sure the same old timers are still around, but they're few and far between, and concentrate on the high dollar boutiqe market.

Sorry for the rant, but the state of GA flight training is a mess. Not from a technical point of view (DVDs sure beat those scratchy old Cessna Pilot Center film strips), but from an affordibility/accessibility point of view.

Nu

 

[VW Pilot]

I think it is the cost....mst people I talk to stop somwhere along the line..their complaint? Cost....

 

[D8Ball]

One thing that I saw kill two local flight schools near me was there lack of reinvesting money into their school aircraft. One company advertised to have instrument training and all three aircraft they had didnt have a GPS in them. I used to tell students to go find a school that had decent GPS systems in their aircraft since it has become such an essential part of instrument training. Those schools suffered from issues like this and had since closed.

My response to the question is that there are less flight schools, but still lots of students. The cost has been a huge factor, such as outrageous gas prices, but sometimes the school can make fatal mistakes too!

Most students want to learn on airplanes that are modern w/ the modern digital equipment. Maybe The Cessna 162 will help manage the cost....time will tell.

 

[D8Ball]

I don't think the 162 will be certified for IFR training though...could be wrong. Does anyone know if it will be?

 

[NuGuy]

I used to tell students to go find a school that had decent GPS systems in their aircraft since it has become such an essential part of instrument training. .

Heyas,

If that's what you are telling students, then you are doing them a disservice.

If a student came to me and asked "do I fly the 2007 Cessna for $125/hr or the 1978 Cessna for $85?", I'd tell him to log more time in the cheaper airplane.

Basic airmanship, decision making, and learning situational awareness is the cornerstone of flight training. You don't learn these things by burying your head in the cockpit punching buttons, you learn them by putting air under your butt looking at the big picture.

You can still get your instrument ticket with a 6 pack and a navcom/ADF. ANYTHING you need to learn about GPS you can learn from downloading the task trainers from the manufacturers, and maybe do 5-10 hours work in the airplane. I certainly wouldn't pay several thousands more in increased rental fees.

If I was hiring CFIIs, I would pick up the guy with 400TT and learned to fly needle/ball/airspeed, rather than the 200TT guy who spent 150 hours of that twisting knobs.

Nu

 

[NuGuy]

I don't think the 162 will be certified for IFR training though...could be wrong. Does anyone know if it will be?

An aircraft does not have to be certified for IFR to be used as an IFR trainer. IFR equipped R-22 helicopters have been used for years and years as IFR trainers, and they are not certified for IFR.

If you want to actually FLY in IMC, that's another story.

Nu

 

[D8Ball]

if you're talking about just logging time, then I agree with you but if you want real training in real situations then you do just that and find an aircraft with a GPS. With an exception of an ILS, the GPS has taken over IFR nav.

I never said it had to be a 2007 aircraft. What I said is that the aircraft should have a GPS such as a Garmin 430....a 1960 aircraft can have that!

If a flight school won't step up and put a GPS in their aircraft (for IFR training), unless there is some top notch instructor there, I would have to send my business elsewhere.

 

[NuGuy]

if you're talking about just logging time, then I agree with you but if you want real training in real situations then you do just that and find an aircraft with a GPS. With an exception of an ILS, the GPS has taken over IFR nav.

I never said it had to be a 2007 aircraft. What I said is that the aircraft should have a GPS such as a Garmin 430....a 1960 aircraft can have that!

If a flight school won't step up and put a GPS in their aircraft (for IFR training), unless there is some top notch instructor there, I would have to send my business elsewhere.

I disagree.

A huge part, if not the main part, of instrument training is basic attitude flying, partial panel and situational awareness (including working with ATC). None of which requires the use of GPS.

If there are two schools on the field, both with equally competent instructors. Once school has a old, but reasonably clean 172 with VORs for $90/hr. The other school has a 2004 172 with twin 430s for $115/hr. Assume instructor costs are the same, so we'll ignore them.

Pilot A decides he's too macho to fly the VOR only plane, so he does his entire instrument rating in the more expensive plane. Total cost: $4,600 (40x$115).

Pilot B decides he'd like to be on top of everything, so he decides to do 40 hours in the cheaper plane, then a 8 hour transition. Total cost: $3600 (40x$90) + $920 ($115x8) for a grand total of $4520.

I've been training students for a long time, and learning GPS is the easy part. Have them work with the 430 task trainer at home, and concentrate on flying the airplane under the hood, learning to keep track of where the plane is, and thinking ahead.

When he's done with the checkride, give him a good 6-10 hours dual in the airplane with the box. At this point he's got the basic IFR stuff mastered, and can give his attention to working with the box real world instead of struggling to keep the plane upright while he twists the knobs.

This path is less expensive (and mind you, few people do the rating in only 40 hours, so the real difference is even greater), and you get a much better product, instead of a pilot who sh!ts a brick when the screen goes blank.

Nu

 

[D8Ball]

There is no doubt that the basic flying fundamentals are a major part of IFR training but that is the obvious...the 101 of IFR. You keep going back to the cost comparison issue of an older airplane to a newer airplane.

The topic I brought up is that a GPS equipped aircraft (approach capable) serves as a better all around learning device for the student. There are GPS's in older aircraft and you don't need to charge an extra $30.00 an hour just because it has a Garmin in it. My opinion, they are getting short changed when a flight school is too cheap to equip their aircraft with modern technology. GPS trainer or not, I feel it's just a cheap excuse. I have to endorse the schools that keep that in mind and reinvest in their flight line. Just my opinion, as we all do have them!

 

[Inconceivable]

NuGuy,

Excellent synopsis. Sometimes when I go to GA airports I just sit there and wonder where everything went. Ten years ago I was saddened by the difference from twenty years ago. Now it is literally like watching tumbleweeds blow--and this is in Central Florida!

I really do believe that we have seen the death of General Aviation in the United States. Something is wrong when a husband and wife who are both airline captains are quoted a "checkout/training" price on a SR-22 at Air Orlando that exceeds the cost of our last vacation to HKG. (Hey Air Orlando--that's why they are sitting on the ramp all day!)

I really pity a kid starting out today.

 

[nosehair]

When he's done with the checkride, give him a good 6-10 hours dual in the airplane with the box. At this point he's got the basic IFR stuff mastered, and can give his attention to working with the box real world instead of struggling to keep the plane upright while he twists the knobs.

This path is less expensive (and mind you, few people do the rating in only 40 hours, so the real difference is even greater), and you get a much better product, instead of a pilot who sh!ts a brick when the screen goes blank.

Hey NuGuy, I'm with you. But I think we're a dying breed. Kinda reminds me of the same struggle we saw back when the new Cessna 150 with a nosewheel came out. "I'd rather fly this shiny new Airline type Tricycle gear - that's what the training is all about."

Well, if you know anything about directional control skills, and how that fundamental skill is lost, you know the basic instrument attitude control and situational awareness techniques are going to go down the same way with starting instrument students out on the modern easy-to-fly/navigate toys we have today.

 

[mayday1]

NuGuy,

I really pity a kid starting out today.

no kidding... I cringe when I HEAR what people are paying.. I couldn't imagine actually signing the loan papers to pay for training.. these costs are getting "mortgage-esque"

 

[NuGuy]

NuGuy,

Excellent synopsis. Sometimes when I go to GA airports I just sit there and wonder where everything went. Ten years ago I was saddened by the difference from twenty years ago. Now it is literally like watching tumbleweeds blow--and this is in Central Florida!

I really do believe that we have seen the death of General Aviation in the United States. Something is wrong when a husband and wife who are both airline captains are quoted a "checkout/training" price on a SR-22 at Air Orlando that exceeds the cost of our last vacation to HKG. (Hey Air Orlando--that's why they are sitting on the ramp all day!)

I really pity a kid starting out today.

Heyas Inc,

Yep. I thought for a while the GA Revitalization Act back in 1996 would get the ball rolling again, and to be fair, I wasn't exposed to a whole lot of first hand experience since I was busy working the airline career.

But $90/hr for a 152? Are you sh!tting me? It ain't just gas, neither...check the cost of overhauling a O-235 these days? Crazy!

I don't know about the LSA deal either. It's fine for 2, but most people I know want at least 4 seats and some sort of IFR capability. Cessna wants 110K for their VFR two seater, but look at the price jump from that to even a basic 172.

But seeing FXE the other day was just a shocker. Absolutely pristine VFR weekend, and not a soul in sight.

A LOT of GA, and I mean ALOT, was going on with people who were just everyday Joes...teachers, policemen, etc. But that market has just been obliterated.

To learn to fly in 1987 at KNEW, I paid $250 to the FBO "club", which was a Cessna Pilot Center (wish I'd kept my "Red Bag"). For $25/mo (club dues), I flew 152s at $30, 172s (newish) for $39, and a Archer with DME/AP and A/C for $50. All wet.

My handy dandy inflation calculator says today it should cost me $53.17/hr (plus $44/mo club dues), which must be ok, because I would find those prices reasonable.

Back when I was first learning, in the late 80s, I used to thing "wow, what a time the 70's must have been, where Cessna was pumping out every kind of airplane, and even the funky little GA airports were still operating in the middle of towns".

Now I just wish to have the 80's back. Sad, really. I read the AOPA mag these days, and they paint this wonderful picture, but out in the real world, its a pretty barren place, IMHO.

Nu