He almost hit a deer on a 3.5 hour drive. That's the real reason FlyTech Pilot Academy exists today.Lute Atieh was just trying to stop making that drive to Jefferson City, Missouri for monthly meetings. A slick road and a close call with a deer sent him looking into flying himself instead, and that decision eventually turned into a flight school.Today Lute is the Managing Partner of FlyTech Pilot Academy at Rosecrans Memorial Airport in St. Joseph, Missouri. He joins host Dan Gill on The Aviation Business Podcast to walk through how one training aircraft turned into a flight school running close to a full schedule, and how that school is now growing into a second market.If you run a flight school or you are thinking about starting one, this conversation is full of numbers and decisions you can use: what it actually costs to run a training aircraft, how much to spend on marketing and where to spend it first, how to bring on partners without losing control of your business, and why Lute believes right now is one of the best windows in decades to buy, partner into, or start an aviation business.In this episode:✅ Why Lute almost went off the road avoiding a deer, and how that led him to flying✅ The five year path to his private pilot certificate, and why he tells students not to rush✅ Why St. Joseph had no flight school, and the decision to build one✅ Betting on a modern, glass cockpit trainer instead of an older aircraft✅ Growing from one plane to a full schedule on two aircraft✅ Expanding FlyTech into a second market✅ Why students train in two different aircraft types on purpose✅ What a healthy, fully utilized training aircraft actually looks like✅ A real marketing budget: where to start and where to scale✅ Why Lute brought in partners instead of running it alone✅ Ground school nights, hangar hangouts, and building free local media coverage✅ The generational handoff happening across aviation right now, and what it means if you want inConnect with FlyTech Pilot Academy:Email: lute@flystj.comWebsite: flystj.comAbout The Aviation Business Podcast:The Aviation Business Podcast is produced by Right Rudder Marketing, the digital marketing agency built exclusively for flight schools. FlyTech is one of RRM's clients. Want help growing your flight school? Book a free strategy call at rightruddermarketing.com or call 314-804-1200.

Furloughed flight attendant. Independent CFI. 50,000+ Instagram followers. Now on the marketing team at Jeppesen ForeFlight. Carly Chamerlik's path through aviation is the new playbook, and in this episode she walks through how she built it.Host Tim Jedrek sits down with Carly to talk through her journey from a fine arts degree at United Airlines to a Part 141 program at Falcon Field with one hour of total time, building an audience on Instagram and YouTube as an independent CFI in Tennessee, getting recruited by ForeFlight through a single Instagram DM, and what flight school owners can learn from creators who are quietly out-marketing them.We also dig into ForeFlight Debrief, the automation vs fundamentals debate, what's coming at AirVenture Oshkosh, and the marketing advice every independent CFI and flight school owner should hear.🎙 The Aviation Business Podcast is brought to you by Right Rudder Marketing, the only full-service digital marketing agency built exclusively for flight schools.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 CONNECT WITH CARLY━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Website: https://carlychamerlik.comInstagram: @carlychamerlikYouTube: @carlychamerlikTikTok: @carlychamerlik━━━━━━━━━━━━━━✈️ FOR FLIGHT SCHOOL OWNERS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Want help growing your flight school?🌐 https://rightruddermarketing.com📞 314-804-1200📧 info@rightruddermarketing.comJoin our Facebook group:The Pilot Lounge – Aircraft Flight School Owner Lounge━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 LISTEN ANYWHERE━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 https://aviationbusinesspodcast.comSpotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and everywhere else you listen.Want to be a guest on the show? Reach out at info@rightruddermarketing.com or call 314-804-1200. Squawk VFR.

Most student washouts are predictable before training ever starts. In this episode, Tim Jedrek talks with Caroline Creane, an aviation psychologist certified with the European Association of Aviation Psychology and an 11-year veteran at Symbiotics, about how flight schools use psychometric testing to lower washout rates, meet accreditation standards, and protect both students and the school.

Caroline breaks down what the ADAPT platform actually measures, why it is not a pass-or-fail tool, and how real schools are using the results. You will hear the hard data, including clients who have pushed washout rates below 5% and a school in India that climbed from 19th to 2nd in its DGCA ranking after putting prescreening in place.

If you have ever lost a student halfway through their training, or you are chasing accreditation and Sallie Mae loan access, this conversation lays out a practical path forward.

What you will learn in this episode:

• What psychometric testing measures, in plain language, and why it is not an aviation knowledge exam
• The three areas ADAPT assesses: knowledge, aptitude, and personality
• Why prescreening is not a pass-or-fail gate, and two real ways US schools use the reports
• The data behind the testing, including sub-5% washout rates and the India DGCA ranking jump
• How the FSANA and IAAC accreditation partnership connects to prescreening and Sallie Mae loans
• How Symbiotics handles cheating and AI, including remote invigilation and eye tracking
• The step-by-step process to implement ADAPT at your school
• The personality profile that predicts pilot success, based on the Big Five model
• Inside the FAST test and the joystick games that measure psychomotor skills
• What it costs, with tests starting from about $20 and no setup fees

Symbiotics is a UK-based human performance company with around 30 years in aviation, used in more than 80 countries across 130 or more locations. Learn more at symbioticsltd.com.

CONNECT WITH SYMBIOTICSWebsite: https://www.symbioticsltd.com/Follow Symbiotics on LinkedIn for their global event schedule.

ABOUT RIGHT RUDDER MARKETINGRight Rudder Marketing helps flight schools across the country grow and scale through the Flight School Marketing System. If you run a flight school and want help on the sales and marketing side, visit rightruddermarketing.com or call 314-804-1200.

Have a product or story that brings value to the aviation industry? Reach out about being a guest: info@rightruddermarketing.com

Listen to The Aviation Business Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.