The Only Constant is Change — The Future of Flight Training

In this endless barrage of information, it's important to remember that our industry is very much people based.

Despite predictions of autonomous vehicles and empty cockpits, the world is now facing an unprecedented pilot shortage. Airlines around the world are cancelling hundreds of flights each day due to a lack of personnel. Concerningly, the FAA calculates that the United States alone needs to train nearly 100 new airline pilots every day for the next two decades just to meet projected demand.

The first step in nearly every pilot's career is flight school. The days of the kid hanging on the boundary fence and washing airplanes in exchange for rides at the local aero club have long since been replaced with training organizations providing formal, robust, and complete pilot training - and in a post 9-11 world, with stringent entry requirements and robust vetting practices before the student ever leaves the ground.

As flight schools are faced with global demand for highly competent and tech-savvy pilots, they are turning to new navigation and communication systems that not only increase safety but also business efficiency and cost-effectiveness to remain commercially attractive and competitive.

Over the last two years, TracPlus has worked closely with flight schools in New Zealand and around the world to deliver a  set of tools that lever the investment that schools have made in the RockAIR from TracPlus. Working with CFI's and business owners around the world, these "whole of business" tools are now available to all of our customers at no extra cost.

By being able to see the location of - and communicate with - every aircraft regardless of location, instructors can meet their obligation to provide a high level of care over their students, especially on solo cross countries and other solo off-field work.

This level of care is enhanced by real-time maps in the office.

Originally developed for national coordination of air rescue helicopters, our status boards are now being used by flight schools to show - at a glance - the location, status, crew, lesson type and ETA of all aircraft in the fleet. Having this real-time information constantly available - both onscreen and online - means that many questions can be answered before they are asked, while quickly highlighting any issues that need your attention.

Our fully customizable in-cockpit checklists and flight forms allow students and instructors to capture lesson types and durations, fuel and oil loads, and engine run times. Coupled with IQ Onboard Bluetooth tags, instructor and student names can even be automatically detected and entered onto forms. All of this essential information can be delivered automatically to status boards, automatic end-of-flight lesson reports and end of month downloads for accurate maintenance and consumption reports.

This seamless and continuous delivery of realtime information from the training fleet to the office not only significantly enhances student safety and instructor oversight, but it also ensures that flight school owners have timely and accurate information to ensure their competitive offering to the global market is as attractive and efficient as possible.

We believe that students who are effectively supported from day one of their training with a proven real-time workflow solution are better equipped to meet the demands of an ever-changing profession, and will be best placed to exercise their "license to learn".