The industry of aviation is growing. With nearly 25,000 more pilots needed to keep up with the demand of placement and nearly 13,000 in growth of need captains and co-pilots. The industry as a whole needs 33,000 pilot and crew members alone. With China and parts of Asia growing, experts say the number is doubling. With the leaders in Simulations, REDBIRD SIMULATIONS and Aero-Sphere Inc. are teaming up to fill the gap in the northern Denver, Co area. With only 3 other simulators in the area and nearly 1,500 pilots produced from the Front Range, I will be able to capture an estimate of 250 clients per year. The industry relies on Flight training and recurrent training for both FAA practical test standards and personal standards. The way students are trained is changing as the demand grows. With real life based training in simulators, the demand is at a premium. As a comparatives, CAE SimUFlight and Flight Safety International complete training on nearly 150,000 pilots recurrent training, all controlled by the FAA and insurance companies. The business of aviation is being creative in building flight training devices to train and challenge students and professional pilots for a wide range of task. As technology gets better, advanced avionics, complex GPS’s and faster aircraft are produced, I see the slow progression of training tools to keep up with this demand. AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association) has said that “the advancements is avionics and aircraft capability have made leaps and bounds, our concern is, are the flights schools keeping up?” While the FAA has required Certified Flight Instructors (CFI’s) to have knowledge and teach when appropriate, these complex systems, a majority of CFI’s avoid complex aircraft since their knowledge is lacking. The short term goal is to teach instructors to a level that they can teach these subjects. The long term is to insure the training will create a safer, well informed and highly qualified pilot.
