The Mach 1 Blog

“The difference between how most of our industry executes the getting and keeping of customers and how other industries do the same thing is vast- and not always in a good way.”

Our number one goal is to help reshape this industry mindset, one customer at a time.

Like most any accident, incident, or business challenge, the problem is not ever just one thing; it’s almost always a number of things that create the issue. The same is true for “The Problem” that our industry faces today.

Here’s a snapshot of some of the major elements that make up “The Problem”:

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“My first wife didn’t like to fly either.”

-Gordon Baxter

A few weeks ago, we had the chance to spend a number of days talking to some different business elements of the Light-Sport industry at the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring, FL.

We were pleasantly surprised to hear from a number of schools that were open and candid about their newfound experience with the LSA platform, and its worth to them from a business standpoint. We heard comments like these at the Sebring event from school owners:

• “Our LSA program has brought increasing numbers of 20-30 somethings who are ‘passionate pilots’ that are excited to start training, they complete their training with greater frequency, and continue to fly and rent (post-rating) with a greater frequency than we’ve seen in recent years.”
• “New customers like the ramp appeal of LSA. It doesn’t look like your Grand-Dad’s airplane.”
• “The cost factors (vs. returns) for both the operator and students/renters is very attractive.”

For the first time in a while, we’ve heard flight schools use really good words like growth and adding airplanes in conversations we’ve had with them about LSA use.

It’s not all milk and honey.

LSA's are already proving their worth with increasing the number of customers that flight schools get and keep.

LSA airframe placement in flight schools can sometimes incur challenges that aircraft certificated in other categories do not face. These challenges can include:

• Third party lenders are sometimes less willing to offer a loan on a Light-Sport Aircraft vs. a conventionally certificated airplane for the purposes of that aircraft entering a flight school on a leaseback or aircraft management agreement vis a vis an (other) party owner.
• Most lenders do not have strong data that shows what the true market value of a 3-5+ year old airplane is, resulting in a lower level of confidence about its overall residual value. We want to add that they don’t have it because it many cases it doesn’t exist yet.
• Lenders are sometimes less certain about the overall robustness of a particular LSA design, and its suitability for the flight training environment.
• Some decision makers within the flight training industry believe that LSA’s aren’t a “real” airplane, and shy away from them.
• Presently, over 70 manufacturers are continuing to seek a toe-hold in the North American marketplace. Basic business economics might dictate that perhaps not all of them will ultimately have longevity in North America. Some potential buyers are concerned that if a manufacturer pulls out of North America, their airframe will not be supported domestically, or at all.

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As pilots and aviation enthusiasts, we know the joy and passion of flying. There is something unique about flying that motivates us to want to share this passion with others. For many people, the notion of becoming a pilot seems so large, so difficult, so “out there” that they simply don’t stop to really investigate or consider it. Instead, even if they have the time and the means to become a pilot, they often choose to buy a motorcycle or a jet ski and ignore the yearning they have to fly.

One of my goals is to help bring flying back to the forefront of people’s minds and to show them that becoming a licensed pilot is within reach!

My new book, You Can Be a Pilot is a short and easy-to-read book geared at anyone who has looked skyward at a passing plane and wondered what it would be like to fly. I’ve purposely written it in a conversational style with very little aviation buzz-words and jargon. It’s meant to be an encouraging read that will motivate and inspire the potential pilot to take their first step to earning their wings.
In this book, I walk through the flight training a process and answer 25 of the most common questions people have about learning to fly:

• What type of plane will I fly?
• How long will it take?
• What should I look for in an instructor?
• What’s it like to solo?
• What’s the practical test like?

My other hope for this book is that it can be a tool for flight schools and flight instructors. It would make a great gift following a discovery flight. It’d be a great resource to pass to someone you know that has expressed interest in flying, such as a walk-in at the local flight school. It’s a book that can be used to take the message, the opportunity of flight training, to others!

You Can Be a Pilot is available at Amazon.com by clicking here >>> As a bonus, the audio version is available as a FREE downloadable podcast to anyone who purchases the book.

The book’s website, http://youcanbeapilot.com is also developing into a place where potential pilots can ask questions and pilots can encourage others by telling their stories.

Please pass the word, and if I can assist or encourage you in any way, please feel free to contact me at chris@myflightcoach.com

Keep Flying and Telling the Story!
Chris

Chris Findley (CFI, CFII) is a guest blogger for MACH1 and a flight instructor at Wings of Eagles School of Flight at the John Tune airport (KJWN) in Nashville, TN.  He is founder of www.myflightcoach.com and a graduate of Auburn University’s Aviation Management program. He and his wife Sheryl and boys Aidan and Evan live in Nashville.

by Chris Findley, CFI, CFII

Many flight schools operate on the same paradigm used in the movie “Field of Dreams”.  You may recall Ray Kinsella (played by Kevin Costner) is inspired by a vision to build a baseball field in the middle of his Iowa cornfield.  Against the wishes of more rational minds he does it anyway following the dramatically whispered mantra, “If you build it, they will come.”

That seems to have been prevailing model for flight schools: scrounge up a couple of planes, find a few CFIs desperate for flight time, get a sign made and you’re in business!  “If you build it, they will come.”

The trouble is that many schools are learning that what worked for Ray Kinsella doesn’t work anymore for flight training.  At one time, the “Field of Dreams” model was enough to allow a flight school to keep open its doors.  But that simply isn’t the case anymore.  Today’s flight school must understand that it is competing for the attention and business of the public which is just as prone to buy a Harley Davidson motorcycle or a bass boat as it is to take flying lessons.  It must embrace a more proactive way of thinking and behaving in the marketplace in order to attract and retain the business it so desperately desires.

We need to understand target markets and red velvet ropes.  Here are a few questions that Flight Schools may want to ask:

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“I do apologise. I’m sure you are aware we have a technical issue with our No. 2 engine. I’m sure you are aware we are not proceeding to Sydney at this stage … The aircraft is flying safely at this stage … Thank you for your patience.”

— Captain Richard de Crespigny, Qantas Flight 32, PA to the A380 cabin following the explosion of number 2 engine shortly after departure from Changi International Airport, Singapore, November 4th,2010.

It’s almost here- again.

Thanksgiving is next Thursday. The largest shopping day of the year is the day after. As always, shoppers are looking for bargains. They are also looking for unique gifts to give.

Most every flight school in the US offers some sort of introductory flight or initial lesson package, which can make a great holiday gift.

If you haven’t tried this already, it can be a powerful marketing tool for helping to get new people into your school for their first flight in a GA airplane.

Make sure your intro flights can easily be given as gifts this year!

This Holiday season, find a way to get your school in front of shoppers that are looking for something unique to give to a loved one or family member.

Here are some ideas that you might want to try:

• Set up a temporary kiosk at a mall and sell gift certificates on site.
• Advertise your gift certificates in the newspaper or on Groupon.
• Position an ad for your gift certificate prominently on your school’s website.
• Use a broadcast email to let your current customers know that holiday gift certificates are for sale.
• We recommend that you allow one person on an intro flight for one gift certificate.

Make sure that your gift certificate documents are professional looking and appear “gift-worthy”. Ensure that your certificates clearly explain what is being offered and any limitations to the offer. Make sure that they also clearly display your school’s contact information.

Happy Holidays!

“Don’t let work get in the way of your flying….”

A nice thought, but not an honest reality for most students and renters (too bad). In previous posts, we’ve talked about the value of social media, broadcast emails, and other e-tools that you can use for keeping your school (and aviation) in front of existing and future customers.

An often overlooked tool for reaching out to your customers is a sponsored feed of  liveatc.net. We’re willing to bet that most of you have heard of this service, and have maybe even used it. Here’s why we think this service can benefit your school from a marketing perspective:

1. For those of us who have to work at our desks more than we fly, we often crave getting back into the air. Having a liveatc feed at our desk keeps the rest of us thinking about aviation and wishing we were back in the air.
2. If you sponsor a feed, liveatc has been known to give you some ‘free’ advertising bandwidth on their site.
   

   LiveATC helps to keep your customers close to the action.

3. Mobile feeds are also available through an iPhone or iPad app.
4. With correct supervision from an authorized instructor, it can also be used as an effective training and debriefing tool. (Did you know that archives of feeds are available?)

If the CTAF, TWR, GND, App/Dep or other frequencies are not already sponsored at your airport, pick one that’s practical for you, and sponsor it. It doesn’t cost anything to sponsor a feed, other than your initial investment in scanner equipment.

Here’s how to do it, and how make it work for your school…

• Research and see what frequency(ies) are not already sponsored at your airport. Some feeds are an amalgamation of frequencies. We think that having one freq per feed is the right choice. For those new to aviation, ATC speak is confusing enough for the newbie without having to listen to multiple freqs at once. Keep it simple for the less than 100h crowd…
• Your investment of equipment can be less than $200, and maybe less than $100. You’ll need a aviation band scanner, antenna, and patch cable to tie the scanner output into a computer “line-in” plug port on your existing internet connected computer.
• Contact liveatc.net support and let them know you’re interested in sponsoring a feed for your airport. They will send you the software (it’s really small and easy to use) and can help you with any technical difficulties you may encounter in setting up your feed.
• Once your feed is established, use all the tools at your disposal to share with your customers the new feed. Show them what they can do with it.

There aren’t many things in aviation that are free.  This service comes as close to free as you’re likely to find.

Let’s start this post with one quick thought:

We hope this kind of situation never comes up… and for most of you, it never will. However, some of you may have already encountered an exceptionally difficult customer whose behaviors jeopardized either the safety, security, or professional atmosphere of your business.

Everyone has a bad day now and then. This isn’t who we’re talking about.

How you handle tough rental or training customers makes a difference.

Here are three brief case studies of customers I’ve encountered in the course of being a CFI who were difficult, and how things were handled with them:

1.  ”Steve”, a long-time student and renter at a medium sized flight school.

Steve arrived at a school I was teaching for, and his scheduled instructor had no-showed due to a bona-fide schedule mix-up that was more the school’s fault than anyone else’s. Steve was looking to accomplish an IPC this day, and seemed a little bit irritated, but not overly upset. I agreed to fill-in for the missing CFI. We walked out to the aircraft together,  and I asked him if he had already accomplished the pre-flight. He replied “yes.” Since I had not flown with him before, I did a quick check of the aircraft including a check of the engine oil level. Steve challenged me on why I did this, and he reminded me that we were already late for getting
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If you watch any amount of TV these days, you know that “reality” TV is everywhere. It’s cheap to produce, and some shows have been fortunate enough to get stellar ratings. It’s the ultimate in high-concept, relatively low budget programming.

One reality show that seems to be doing well is CBS’ Undercover Boss. If you haven’t seen it yet, the premise is simple- take a CEO or other high level executive out of the boardroom, give them a pseudo-identity,  and put him or her to work in a rank and file role where a strong back and a significant amount of physical hustle are required. They spend a week working this “real” job and learn what it takes to be successful at an entry level role with their own company.

Often, in the last segment of the show, when the CEO’s “co-workers” for the week show up for debriefing at company HQ there is a “Brady Bunch” ending…CEO learns and admits that life is really tough at the bottom. He or she admits that some of the policies, principles, and ideals that upper management thought were part of the everyday corporate culture are, in fact, not.

Then comes the fixes and the accolades: Middle management is sometimes blamed. New healthcare initiatives are started. Raises, scholarships and bonuses are given to the “co-workers”, and vacations are sometimes handed out. Promises to change and make things better are spoken. Good.

The buck stops with you.

When I watch this show, I like to watch the faces of the others in the boardroom when the last segment of the show begins. This where the CEO starts talking about “what he or she learned during the past week”. Those other execs, they often look a little scared.

While I don’t doubt that these CEO’s are sincere in what they say or do on the show, I am more apt to question anything that is supposedly “real” but at the same time videotaped and subject to other people editing the final footage. How differently would you do your job if it was being continuously videotaped each day?

What, as flight school owners, can we learn from the “CEO revelations” that come out of this show?

1. Delegation should be a leadership tool that you use to help you get closer to your customers, not further away from them. The buck stops with you. The more time you can take to visit (one one one) with your customers and students, the more you’ll come to understand where they are with your school.
2. Talk to, and work with your rank and file personnel regularly. I once knew a flight school owner that  hid in his glass office and worked on spreadhseets and other busy work all day long, every day. He had not a clue what was really going on in his school. As CEO, you should interact with your instructors regularly, even if you’re not a CFI yourself. Backseat a lesson every now and then. The more frequently you can do this the more likely they’ll be to share unfiltered thoughts and ideas with you. You really do WANT these thoughts from them.
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Perhaps the sleekest looking and most enigmatic of all military aircraft, the Oxcart platform was borne out of a specific need to defeat (i.e. outrun & outfly) the defense systems of its day while on missions to gather hard visual intelligence about other nations activities.

While I never got to see one airborne, I have been fortunate enough to see 4 of them in museums around the country. It’s an amazing airplane.

Here are some little (or lesser) known facts about this airplane:

• It’s design was accomplished with slide rule calculators, and not computers.
  

  The performance of this unique bird, even some 50 years, later remains unparalleled.

• In cruise flight, the coolest portion of the skin temperature was 450F.

• While some were lost to accidents, not one was ever shot down.

• A significant amount of air was bypassed from the first compressor stage to the afterburner, making the J58 a quasi-ramjet engine.

• The aircraft burned much less fuel towards the top end of its speed range. Low on fuel? Speed up…

• It used JP-7 fuel, which many of you may know that it leaked from its wet wing type fuel tanks while on the ground. JP-7 at most sea level ambient temps was non-flammable and required it to be mixed with a TEB additive to get it ignited. The SR-71 carried just 20 ounces of the TEB fluid on each flight, allowing for 16 ignites.

• It was not uncommon for missions to have 3 to 5 inflight refuelings.

• The JP-7 fuel contained a special cesium additive, making the exhaust plume more stealthy.

• The onboard computers designed to help control the engines were initially analog, and not digital. The first iterations of these computers had trouble keeping up with shock cone placement at cruise speed. As a result, flameouts at Mach 2.x were sometimes common.
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