Introductory Flight

Zero1Niner

Zero1Niner

Well-Known Member
Curious what methods you all are using for introductory flights. I guess I am not only asking this question from 'training' perspective, but also from the marketing perspective (our objective to covert the interested into pilots)

What parts do you let them fly (monitored carefully of course), and when not to. How much time are you spending with them on the ground prior, and what information are you covering?

How much time do you spend talking after the flight, and what about? DO you give them a fancy 'first flight' certificate at the end, and a small logbook with their first flight logged?

Please share your success formula!
 
I do the preflight before hand and then talk for 15-25 minutes to answer questions.

I start the plane and go over a few control surfaces. After pulling out of the chocks I have them taxi with as little assistance as possible to the runup area.

I do a quick run up. The taxi exchange of controls prepares them for the air. Then I have them taxi to the runway in use.

On the runway they have the controls still, & I direct them to increase throttle and walk them through the take off, as hands off as I can be. They do all the flying around the circut and I talk them to landing.

With the climb and level off they have grasped how to raise lower and move the nose around.

I walk them through the flair and then assit with breaking. The prospective taxis again to the hold short and they do another unassisted take off.

I find there is very little a prospective will not do just through verbal commands alone. Sure I assist a bit, butthey DO have a lot of control over the aircraft.

There have been only a few instances where I have flown, usually when they are too uncomfortable or feeling ill.

I find that the level of control they take bodes well for allowing them to see my teaching style and recognize I am not here to learn how to fly.

For me that starts with the first flight.

I also think it comes from the confidence of having done this for years and being able to size up the problem areas. As ong as they listen, theyre good to go. There have been a few uncomfortable discovery flights, but they were far in between.
 
I usually just take off, fly an extended downwind, make them do a steep turn, then come back for a landing full stop. :rotfl:
 
We had 20 min and hour long intros. Both cases I spent about 15 minutes on the preflight and started the preflight with, "you don't need to remember any of this, it is only to show you the aircraft is safe so stop me with any questions you have."

The 20 minute they taxied, took off, and very few got to stay on controls for landing. It was basically a matter of confidence.

The hour they did everything and anything they were comfortable with. I often did zero gravity demos by asking if they enjoyed roller coasters and if they liked going over the hill on a coaster. If they did then we would do an easy one first and not a zero gravity, if they liked that I would do it again. I had one who liked it so much that I did a true zero gravity with us floating off our seats for 2-3 seconds...the dried caulking also decided to float in front of us from our crap planes, that was the last time I demoed that to an intro.

Other than that I intro three things in the air, the horizon eye level to fly level flight, you can't move the controls unless your looking at that horizon, and a basic visual scan including attitude indicator with the windscreen broken into 3 sectors. I adapt that scan just like you would an attitude instrument scan with the center being what you come back to each time. I find this allows them to fly basic level flight (after I trim it out for them) for most of the flight and gives them the feeling of accomplishing something.

Follow up is 5-15 minutes discussing what is needed to get a license, costs, and answering any questions.
 
I do a combination of what everyone else has mentioned.

Also, for what it's worth, I don't use intro flights to "sell" a person on flying. A lot of our best customers signed up for training without doing a discovery flight. In fact, most of them didn't even see our planes before signing up. At the same time, very few of our discovery flights turn in to customers who actually follow through on training. We've found the people who are serious about getting a license will come in, talk, and sign up, while most of the "tire kicker" types are the ones drawn to a discovery flight. They come out, have fun, and go home with little commitment to flying.

For that reason, we don't really discount our discovery flights or push them much in our advertising. If a person asks to do a discovery flight we're happy to go up with them, but we don't depend on discovery flights to bring in much new business.
 
I usually take them up to around 20k feet ans shw 'em a "death spiral."

Ours are 1 hr with the instructor. I bring them into the classroom, ask them what brought them there. Then I go over basic aircraft control with a cockpit picture. We do the pre-flight togeher like shdw explained for his 20min versions. Then I do the eng. start, taxi out to the line (it's tight at my place, and I want them to experince the flying, not the avoiding knocking whingtips), and let them taxi to the run-up. I do the run-up, get the plane centered on the runway, and tell them have at it. "Light backpressre, let it fly off. OMG, look at you, your flying an airplane. It's easy isn't it......" We head for the coast, fly some circles around Ventura pier, and head back to the airport (full steam ahead, I want to show them how practical an airplane can be). Then I have them focus on nothing but the yoke for landing. I work the pedals, the throttle, flaps. I can usually get them to plunk it down "alone." Then a de-brief on the costs (It's like a car payment a month, a really nice car), how often they should come in, give them some info packets, and set them up on my schedule. I have found that if you don't put them in the system and get them to commit to atleast a few lessons, they will never come back.
 
mshunter said:
and set them up on my schedule. I have found that if you don't put them in the system and get them to commit to atleast a few lessons, they will never come back.
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Thats great advice, my school has a 350 enrollment fee and allows up to two 1 hr intros before you must enroll. The enrollment gets them all their books, bag, and that stuff but I have a feeling it scares many of them away. Might make more sense to just buy the ground book and the POH and get on the schedule. What do you guys do for that bud?
 
I try to muster all the energy for a good disco flight as described but I usually spend most of the day dreading the flight.


yep, dreadful.
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shdw said:
Thats great advice, my school has a 350 enrollment fee and allows up to two 1 hr intros before you must enroll. The enrollment gets them all their books, bag, and that stuff but I have a feeling it scares many of them away. Might make more sense to just buy the ground book and the POH and get on the schedule. What do you guys do for that bud?
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We offer a few different options. Jeppesen, FAA, CPC, or pay me to sit and talk to you or hours on end. I let them decide, but I highly recomend the CPC because it is extreamly interactive. It also allows me to track their progress and spot check them eaiser, rather than doing endless hours o ground, when they can study on their own. I hate spoon feeding.
 
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