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.

oe Gilroy's last flight as a Delta Airlines captain landed at Atlanta-Hartsfield on March 6, 2026. He had just crossed the Atlantic from Dublin on an A330. The tower gave him an unexpected runway assignment. The landing was not what he had planned. He wouldn't trade a second of it.

In this episode, Dan Gill sits down with Joe two months into his retirement for a career retrospective that covers every era of commercial aviation. Joe started flying for money in a Cessna 172 rigged with a billboard and a belt of mercury-charged lights, circling the Capitol Beltway at night until Andrews Air Force Base shut him down for causing a UFO scare. He ended his career as a captain on the Airbus A350 and A330, with stops along the way on the Lockheed Electra, the Boeing 727, the A320, and the development teams for both the 787 and A350.

This conversation covers the stories you don't usually hear — the bar conversation that led to his Republic Airlines job, getting switched from the Convair to the 727 on his first day of class, watching Top Gun at a matinee before a night simulator session, the DB Cooper legend and what it built into every 727 ever made, and what it actually felt like to watch the northern lights from an A330 flight deck over the North Atlantic.

Joe also talks about what he's building now. Speedway Flight Training in Hampton, Georgia started as a flying club called Happy Goat in 2016. Today it's a full flight school with a scholarship fund that puts non-traditional high school students in the cockpit, no cost to them, with a full pathway to an aviation university and a professional pilot career.

His message to the next generation: be humble, be grateful, and never forget that fewer than 1 percent of people on this planet get to do what you do.

🎧 Speedway Flight Training: speedwayft.com🎓 Scholarship Fund: speedwayscholarship.com📍 Right Rudder Marketing: rightruddermarketing.com

Wings Leasing is one of the fastest-growing aircraft leasing companies in the country, and they are built exclusively for flight training. In this episode of The Aviation Business Podcast, host Dan Gill sits down with Max Fuller, who works in Sales and Marketing at Wings Leasing, to break down how aircraft leasing works for flight school operators and why more schools are turning to it to grow their fleets without depleting their capital.

Max got his start in aviation watching FedEx departures at Indianapolis at age eight, worked FBO line service in high school, studied at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and cold-emailed Wings Leasing founder Alan Goodnight from his dorm room. Less than two years later, he is closing fleet deals for some of the largest pilot training programs in the country.

In this conversation, Dan and Max cover the real economics of fleet growth, what a sale-leaseback program looks like in practice, why a new Cessna 172 now costs over $700,000 with a two-year wait, and how Wings can close on lease terms in as little as 10 days with zero money down.

If you run a flight school and you have ever felt like fleet expansion was a capital problem you could not solve, this episode is worth your time.

What you will learn:

• Why leasing preserves liquidity and keeps aircraft off your balance sheet as debt
• How a sale-leaseback works and what a school gets out of it
• How Wings Leasing closed 100+ aircraft in its portfolio since launching in 2023
• What it takes to expand a fleet from 5 aircraft to 8 or 10 without traditional debt
• Why aircraft are best understood as portable real estate
• How young professionals can build a career in aviation finance without being a pilot

Connect with Wings Leasing:Website: www.WingsLeasing.com

Connect with Right Rudder Marketing:Website: https://rightruddermarketing.comPodcast Library: https://rightruddermarketing.com/podcast/

Matt Wilkins was part of the 80% who started flight training and quit before finishing. He could not afford to keep going and did not have a clear path in front of him. Fast forward to today: Matt is the co-founder and COO of Hawkins Flight Academy in Shelbyville, Tennessee, and in two years of operation, his school has a 0% student dropout rate.

In this episode, Dan Gill sits down with Matt to talk through how Hawkins Flight Academy is built differently: program-based pricing that tells students their total cost before day one, a fleet of nine RV-12iSTs running Garmin G3X glass cockpits and Rotax engines burning 3.1 gallons per hour, a 3,000 square foot campus that started as a travel trailer on a gravel road, and a training culture built around mentorship instead of hour building.

Matt also gets into where light sport aviation is heading with the FAA's Mosaic rule changes, why Hawkins Adventure Flights exist, and how he and co-founder Mike Harris are working with Tennessee state legislators to open up the Tennessee Promise scholarship program to flight training students.

Hawkins Flight Academy is a Right Rudder Marketing client, and this is a conversation we are proud to share with every flight school owner listening.

What you will learn in this episode:

• Why program-based training eliminates the 80% dropout problem and how Hawkins has maintained a 0% dropout rate since opening
• The real cost difference between a Rotax-powered RV-12 at 3.1 gallons per hour and a Cessna 172 at 9-10 gallons per hour
• How Hawkins chose Shelbyville Municipal Airport knowing MTSU was about to move its 950-student program there
• What fleet commonality actually means for student training continuity and aircraft availability
• Why the FAA's Mosaic rule changes are about to open up light sport aircraft in ways most flight school owners are not planning for yet
• How Matt and Mike turned picking up new aircraft from the Vans factory in Aurora, Oregon into cross-country adventure training flights
• The case Matt is making to Tennessee legislators for opening the Tennessee Promise to flight training students somewhere worth landing

Matt WilkinsCo-Founder and COO, Hawkins Flight Academyhawkinsflight.comShelbyville Municipal Airport (KSYI), Shelbyville, TNTupelo Regional Airport (KTUP), Tupelo, MS

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6HqS2ljQR33xof9Xnel9Aw?si=hLNuiWmsSQqKyWrV0Iyj6gFull episode library: https://rightruddermarketing.com/podcast/Is your flight school growing as fast as it should? Right Rudder Marketing builds and runs the full marketing system for flight schools across the United States. Schedule a strategy call: https://rightruddermarketing.com/schedule-call/

Chris McGonegle from Sporty's breaks down Google Ads, home flight simulators, and Reddit SEO strategies that flight school owners can use right now.

Chris McGonegle is the Director of Search Marketing at Sporty's Pilot Shop, the world's largest pilot retailer. He is also a Commercial pilot, a Sporty's Academy and University of Cincinnati Aviation Technology Program graduate, and Sporty's resident flight simulator expert. In this episode, Chris and Tim cover how Sporty's thinks about paid search and upper-funnel marketing across nearly 5,000 products, why Reddit is becoming one of the most important SEO channels for aviation businesses, why the current generation of home simulators has crossed a threshold that changes how flight schools should think about student prep, and what the children of the magenta line teach us about the future of pilot competency.

Whether you run a flight school or you are working on growing one, this conversation is packed with tactics you can put to work this week.

Resources Mentioned in This EpisodeSporty's Pilot Shop: https://sportys.comSporty's flight simulator resources: https://flightsimupdate.comFly Surely (AI-powered sim training tool): search "Fly Surely" to learn moreStick and Rudder by Wolfgang Langewiesche: available at sportys.comReady to grow your flight school? Download the free Flight School Marketing Handbook from Right Rudder Marketing: https://rightruddermarketing.com/resources/flight-school-handbookSchedule a free strategy callCall us: 314-804-1200Follow Right Rudder Marketing:Website: https://rightruddermarketing.comLinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/rightruddermarketing

He was sitting on the back of a C-130 waiting for an instrument check. Something was broken. And while he waited, he watched four Navy technicians try to read a wiring diagram — flipping back and forth, losing their place, burning time on a document that was never built for the way humans actually learn.That was the moment Scott Angelo knew exactly what he needed to build.Scott is the Co-Founder and CRO of UpskillAir, a mobile microlearning platform built for the aviation industry. He is also a First Officer at United Airlines flying the Boeing 737, and a recently retired U.S. Navy Commander with 25 years of flying across the P-3 Orion, C-130, and S-3.In this episode, Tim Jedrek sits down with Scott to talk about why flight school training has not kept pace with the industry, what the brain actually does with information between flight events, and how schools can use short-form video and neuroscience to produce better pilots faster.If you run a flight school, manage a maintenance operation, or train anyone in aviation, this one is worth the full hour.🔗 LINKSUpskillAir website: https://www.upskillair.comContact UpskillAir: info@upskillair.comConnect with Scott Angelo on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/scottangeloWant to grow your flight school?Right Rudder Marketing is the only full-service digital marketing agency built exclusively for flight schools.📞 Call us: 314-804-1200📧 Email us: info@rightruddermarketing.com🌐 Visit us: https://www.rightruddermarketing.com