Free Ground training Lincoln, NE

jesse said:
I suspect the lack of aviation activity probably relates to the fact that Lincoln really isn't a city of money. Given the high cost of flight training compared to local income and almost no marketing not much happens. :)
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...and the fact Lincoln has no uncontrolled airports close.


I think this is a fantastic idea and a great opportunity for Tristan. Geez guys, she is taking the initiative! Her youthful enthusiasm to build a student base should be commended! The ground school will hone her teaching skills even more an a CFI / Instructor. This is an EXCELLENT idea! I know of at least one student pilot buddy of mine who will be in attendance!

Well Done Tristan!
 
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Geez everyone, lay off. This is why I stop posting a lot of stuff on this forum.

1) Ground school is worth something. An instructor is taking his or her time to teach you something. Time = money, therefore ground school is worth money. That is basic economics. Providing it for free is a business tactic that might work for some, but not something I'd do. My time is worth too much. If someone wants me to teach them something, I'm going to receive some sort of "compensation" (FAA term), whatever that may be.

2) A good instructor (ground or flight) will teach more than just what it takes to pass the test. This is part of why to be a good instructor it helps to have experience. That way you can give the war stories about how things actually happen, and what all these words mean to your students as pilots. Trying to teach people how to fly while at the same time teaching them everything else may work for some, but not all. I had virtually no ground school, but the plane worked well as a classroom for me.

3) Getting a good score on a written test doesn't mean you know jack, especially on anything useful. Most of the pilots I talk to end up forgetting most of the stuff on the written tests. Good example: all the ADF questions in the instrument written.

Experience and discussions with experienced people are where real learning happens. Those discussions are often best on the ground.

Very cool, Tristan! Hope you enjoy it. :)
 
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edit: Sorry Tristan, you're on your own.
 
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BTW, to everyone's jacked comments about my score - I only trotted it out to show that self learning doesn't net a "70 is passing score."

I guess in the future I'll let people slam the valued members of our community for doing something good, rather than trying to help. Its apparent not many people around anymore are of the class to recognize that, and find it more useful to lump on me instead.

Seems every day I wonder more and more what happened to the "back porch" of PoA.
 
I guess I don't see the problem. :dunno:

If someone wants to provide free flight training -- so?

The market approach has changed for many products and services. After all, how much does it cost ya'll to post on this board?
 
dmccormack said:
I guess I don't see the problem. :dunno:

If someone wants to provide free flight training -- so?

The market approach has changed for many products and services. After all, how much does it cost ya'll to post on this board?
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Thank you, Dan, this is exactly the point.
 
SkyHog said:
BTW, to everyone's jacked comments about my score - I only trotted it out to show that self learning doesn't net a "70 is passing score."

I guess in the future I'll let people slam the valued members of our community for doing something good, rather than trying to help. Its apparent not many people around anymore are of the class to recognize that, and find it more useful to lump on me instead.

Seems every day I wonder more and more what happened to the "back porch" of PoA.
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Nick, I do believe that you're the one who called ground instructors "whiny." I am a ground instructor. I did not whine. In fact I think it's a good marketing idea, and we should do all we can to get new pilot starts.
 
Geico266 said:
I think a fantastic idea and a great opportunity Trist is taking advantage of. Geez guys she is taking the initiative! Her youthful enthusiasm to build a student base should be commended! The ground school will hone her teaching skills even more an a CFI / Instructor. This is an EXCELLENT idea! I know of at least one student pilot buddy of mine who will be in attendance!
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Agreed.

As I was preparing for the CFI I felt it was important I teach someone so that I could hone my teaching skills (which were a bit rusty, even though I taught HS for 5 years, coached varsity basketball and baseball for 4, and have been in and out of educational technolgy for about 20).

So the agreement I worked up with a student pilot was this -- I'll provide free ground instruction, which you can't log, but you don't need, other than to help you master the material.

I helped him in his airplane search, became his CFI for the PP, and now he's letting me use his well-equipped airplane for the CFII, so I can provide his IR instruction.

Of course, I'm in this to fly and learn -- not to make money. Everyone has different motivations, but mine aren't necessarily "right" while the young CFI merely building hours and the other trying to earn a lving is "wrong."
 
gprellwitz said:
Nick, I do believe that you're the one who called ground instructors "whiny." I am a ground instructor. I did not whine. In fact I think it's a good marketing idea, and we should do all we can to get new pilot starts.
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My intention was never to paint all ground instructors are whiny, but rather those ground instructors that complain about the tactics of a CFI.

You'd think that would be about as universally accepted as can be, especially since most people know Tristan and know that she, of all people, would not do anything to hurt the aviation community.

But hey, I'm the jerk.
 
Ground school? I just read a book. I could have received it for free (job perk) but it wasn't even worth that to me. Oh well, different strokes for different folks.
 
steingar said:
Ground school? I just read a book. I could have received it for free (job perk) but it wasn't even worth that to me. Oh well, different strokes for different folks.
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I did receive it for free (job perk too). Leslie paid $10. I figured that for that money we got to sit and have a structured hangar flying, and someone off of whom we could bounce our questions as we went through the books. I always find it enjoyable participating in those sorts of group discussions.
 
If Tristan's getting paid... Great!

If she's not - Oh well.

Personally, now that I have my commercial, I'm still sticking to only gigs that pay. "Free flight time" is not pay. Even though I don't need the money, it's a matter of principle to me. I could go fly jumpers on the other side of town - But they don't pay, and the gas to get there isn't free. Sure I can afford it, and I'd probably enjoy it, and the time I need most is total time so this would work, but I think they should be paying. Period. Heck, the skydivers are sure paying to go up in the plane! And the only reason that they don't pay is that there are plenty of people who will do it for free.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
If Tristan's getting paid... Great!

If she's not - Oh well.

Personally, now that I have my commercial, I'm still sticking to only gigs that pay. "Free flight time" is not pay. Even though I don't need the money, it's a matter of principle to me. I could go fly jumpers on the other side of town - But they don't pay, and the gas to get there isn't free. Sure I can afford it, and I'd probably enjoy it, and the time I need most is total time so this would work, but I think they should be paying. Period. Heck, the skydivers are sure paying to go up in the plane! And the only reason that they don't pay is that there are plenty of people who will do it for free.
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I hope you don't like eating too much...
 
SkyHog said:
most people know Tristan and know that she, of all people, would not do anything to hurt the aviation community.
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Absolutely, and I don't think there's anything wrong with what the flight school is doing in order to drum up business. However, Tristan and other folks here should be informed that doing things for free or cheap just to get flight time or just because they want to fly is a highly controversial issue. I cringed when I saw the initial post because I knew that someone would bring up the "free" aspect even though it's just ground school. It's a good thing this is not a board with a lot of pilots who are doing it for a living.
 
Everskyward said:
However, Tristan and other folks here should be informed that doing things for free or cheap just to get flight time or just because they want to fly is a highly controversial issue.
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I'm probably the worst offender. When I first got my CFI, I enlisted my wife's son as my first guinea pig. Not only didn't I charge for instruction but I paid for the plane. He gave up before solo, but I learned more about teaching than I did from the CFI to whom I gave a big bag of money for the rating.

I think there is a very natural tendency to under value our time when we transition from paying a bunch for the plane, some more for an instructor, treated like we know nothing to being able to sign logbooks for people.

The structure of aviation employment opportunities makes flight time a very valuable commodity and with the low pay for the majority of FBO employed CFI's it seems to be the majority of their compensation.

On one hand I see the benefit of a union that demands CFIs get paid what we're worth. On the other hand as an independent it's nobody's business what I charge my clients.

Joe
 
Performance Flight Training is actually sponsering it since I'm one of thier flight instructors. I dont get rich off of it by any means though. It's a good opportunity to make friends and learn something at the same time.
 
All this "if you give the service away for free you're taking away from others" presumes that there's a fixed size to the market. This type of marketing is not targeted at the present market of students, but is aimed primarily at expanding the market and getting more people involved.
 
To put it bluntly Rick, welcome to business. It's all about competition. However if you want the answer, no one locally offers ground school outside thier own individual lessons. You might get a short lesson on how an airplane stalls but no one is going to devote 2 hours to individual topics such as aircraft systems or even weather. It promises to be entertaining, if nothing else, by watching me teach! ;)

BTW if anyone complains about ground training no matter where they are, keep in mind that you can do the ground portion for free all by yourself. The FAA books are available free on the internet and you can take practice tests on many websites such as sportys.com. However, many people learn better when ground training is interactive rather than just reading a book.
 
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Tristar said:
To put it bluntly Rick, welcome to business. It's all about competition. However if you want the answer, no one locally offers ground school outside thier own individual lessons. You might get a short lesson on how an airplane stalls but no one is going to devote 2 hours to individual topics such as aircraft systems or even weather. It promises to be entertaining, if nothing else, by watching me teach! ;)
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should get jesse to set up a webcam so we all can watch it live streaming on the interweb. pressure's on! :D:D
 
Tristar said:
BTW if anyone complains about ground training no matter where they are, keep in mind that you can do the ground portion for free all by yourself. The FAA books are available free on the internet and you can take practice tests on many websites such as sportys.com. However, many people learn better when ground training is interactive rather than just reading a book.
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Exactly. Do the whiners complain because the books and ground materials are sold for self study too? Afterall, that takes money from AGIs!
 
JeffDG said:
All this "if you give the service away for free you're taking away from others" presumes that there's a fixed size to the market. This type of marketing is not targeted at the present market of students, but is aimed primarily at expanding the market and getting more people involved.
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The thing is that it's not only flight instruction. The doing it for free or cheap controversy extends all the way up the food chain. I'm not really hard on one side or the other. In some sense I believe it's a free market. In another sense I know that it keeps pay at a lower level overall. I just accept the way it is and I've always said that if you want to make a lot of money don't do something that other people consider recreation.
 
SkyHog said:
Exactly. Do the whiners complain because the books and ground materials are sold for self study too? Afterall, that takes money from AGIs!
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No it doesn't - Different people learn differently. I've never attended a formal ground school, free or otherwise, so the book isn't taking anything from a GI. Some people like and/or need a structured course. When you limit it to that group, it changes the argument somewhat.

Really, I don't have a problem with an FBO/flight school offering a free ground school course, as long as they're paying the instructor. Then it's a business-level thing rather than hurting individuals. It's the FBO's that expect already nearly-starving instructors to put in time doing ground schools, community events, etc. for free "because you'll get students out of it" that I think sucks. If new students do come out of it, the FBO will make money as well, so if they're that confident that new students will actually come out of it, they should have no problem paying the CFI a few bucks for their time, knowledge, gas, etc.
 
Actually Crete and Seward are pretty close and they're non-controlled. We do a lot of landing practice at those two airports especially when the heavies take over Lincoln's airport. We try to diminish our chances of being a knat in a hurricane.
 
Let me be a bit more clear. Performance Flight Training offered me the opportunity which I gladly accepted. Yes, I am getting paid for it, no I'm not getting rich off of it. But I didn't accept it for the money, there are better things out there to get rich off of. I accepted it because it's going to give me the opportunity to enrich myself in other areas including my teaching skills, challenging my knowledge, helping others by finding their passion behind learning to fly as well as encourage aviation in general to grow in the Lincoln area. We do encourage those who are starting out as student pilots to purchase the CD-Rom kit to help them follow along.

One thing we've noticed in aviation is the airport can be a pretty intimidating place especially with all the rules. If we can encourage people to come check us out, learn something about flying, and also take note that we're all normal non-scary people from students all the way up to CFIs, maybe it'll be a step up. It takes some personal initiative to walk into a place that the news has defined as a scary place and ask about a world they know little about. We take it a step further and invite them with the only initiative being to walk in the door. If the spark of flying ignites, then the fun starts and the scariness goes away.

The one thing my boss constantly reminds me is that once you learn to fly, no one can take that away. Once you're a pilot, you're a pilot for life.
 
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tonycondon said:
should get jesse to set up a webcam so we all can watch it live streaming on the interweb. pressure's on! :D:D
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Don't give him any ideas! He's already threatened to sit in the back of the class and ask all the hard questions.
 
Tristar said:
Let me be a bit more clear. Performance Flight Training offered me the opportunity which I gladly accepted. Yes, I am getting paid for it, no I'm not getting rich off of it. But I didn't accept it for the money, there are better things out there to get rich off of. I accepted it because it's going to give me the opportunity to enrich myself in other areas including my teaching skills, challenging my knowledge, helping others by finding their passion behind learning to fly as well as encourage aviation in general to grow in the Lincoln area. We do encourage those who are starting out as student pilots to purchase the CD-Rom kit to help them follow along.

One thing we've noticed in aviation is the airport can be a pretty intimidating place especially with all the rules. If we can encourage people to come check us out, learn something about flying, and also take note that we're all normal non-scary people from students all the way up to CFIs, maybe it'll be a step up. It takes some personal initiative to walk into a place that the news as defined as a scary place as ask about a world they know little about. We take it a step further and invite them with the only initiative being to walk in the door. If the spark of flying ignites, then the fun starts and the scariness goes away.

The one thing my boss constantly reminds me is that once you learn to fly, no one can take that away. Once you're a pilot, you're a pilot for life.
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Excellent approach. One of the biggest barriers to entry for many aspiring aviators is "Where do I start?"
 
Rotor&Wing said:
So how does someone earn a living giving instruction for free?:dunno:
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Its really just a loss leader. Tristan's time and any good CFI's time is worth something. But such a class can get folks interested in flying that wouldn't otherwise bit the bullet. I can get her and the FBO future rental. BFR, IPC and advance training. If someone would pay a few hundred bucks for ground training but they get it as a loss leader and sign up for say thier IR cause they like Tristan well then thats money well spent.

I hear ya that you get what you payfor but Tristan is using this as a tool like advertising to drum up business. If it works great if not she trys another angle.
 
There will be no comments from the peanut gallery!

Tuesdays at 7pm.
 
Tristar said:
There will be no comments from the peanut gallery!

Tuesdays at 7pm.
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If they show, buttonhole them. Toss them a few tough questions and engage them in a discussion of the answers. Soon, they'll be the guys in the BACK of the classroom.
Good luck. I think it's a terrific idea.
 
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