April 27, 2011, I became a mother.

Glen Charles Scheirer is now over six months old, and I am approaching my 2-year anniversary of my Discovery Flight — the flight that set in motion my plans of becoming a pilot. Initially, I had thought that keeping up my pilot training would be achievable, if not a piece of cake. I envisioned myself running out to the airport with baby in tow, perhaps buying a small baby head-set, and soloing before he could walk. This has not proved as easy as I had thought. In fact, it has been pretty daunting.

I have some quotes saved in a folder, and upon sifting through them one day, found the following from Eric Hoffer.

“Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay.”
~ Eric Hoffer

I suppose it’s indicative of my generation that I believe I can achieve everything through some combination of brilliance, stamina, and good fortune. Rather than the notion of perseverance and pluck that might have shaped previous generations. Mark Zuckerberg vs. Milton Hershey, if you will.

So, I’ve decided to start back up, if perhaps with more modesty.

And, for the record, I have taken the newest Scheirer out to the plane. . . and he seemed quite intrigued.

I recently posted a comment on another blog, “Stop Loss: AOPA Aims to Get More Students to Finish Line”. Robert Goyer’s entry discussed AOPA’s recent study on the state of flight training: “The Flight Training Experience: A Survey of Students, Pilots, and Instructors” (October 2010).

One of Goyer’s statements resonated with me:

If I had to reduce the findings to one statement it would be that customers expect to be treated well and to get what they’re paying for, which is to get the thrill and reward of learning to fly. They should expect nothing less.

My comment:

I appreciated your use of the term customer, as it speaks to a particular – if not explicitly stated – viewpoint on student pilots. The students need to be understood as both learners, but also as customers. Something I would term “student-customer.” Ultimately, the problem is not cost per se, but rather value to the customer. Value creation for the customer remains transparent to the student, and incomprehensible to the flight school – precisely because the flight school treats students as students only, and students view themselves as customers first, and students second (they can’t help it – society programs them to think that way). Consequently, flight schools generally do not focus on 2 critical areas of Value Creation:

1. For student-customers: flight training programs of the highest quality and value
2. For CFIs: fostering a safe, secure, professionally challenging, and rewarding flight school environment – which in turn helps to create value for the customer.

Once flight schools get it through their heads that these two areas must be addressed, then student-customer (note the purposeful inclusion of the word “customer” rather than simply “student”) retention will increase. Until then, my best wishes to AOPA’s newest endeavor. I’m afraid I remain skeptical.

I’ve made similar assertions on other blogs: as consumers, we pay more for higher value. Flight schools must recognize that students come to them with high, and sometimes poorly defined, expectations. Developing a flight training program that first assists students in articulating personal goals, and then couples that with providing them with the highest quality training is likely to succeed because it has created value for the customer.