Creating Change in Aviation

Recently I have been reading a lot of books and listening to a lot of podcasts about business and personal development. There are some incredibly inspiring stories out there that I just sit in awe of as I hear them play out.

All of these people do amazing things to make the world a better place and to pursue their passions. Many of them make ridiculous amounts of money, but the part that always strikes a chord with me is how happy and fulfilled they all seem, and how that only inspires them to help more.

The person who is quickly inspiring me the most is Gary Vaynerchuk. If you haven’t heard the name you really should look him up on Twitter or Instagram or on his blog or podcast. The man has made his whole life around helping other people succeed and find happiness, and in turn, he has found unbelievable success. He also just released his fifth book, which is what inspired me to write this post.

The book is entitled Crushing It! and I have been enjoying it thoroughly since I got it. I will spare you the review for the time being and simply share the thoughts that it inspired in me as I read. Forgive me if they seem a little disjointed, but I wanted to share them now while they were fresh in my mind and heart.

He talks a lot about having a passion, which I honestly do have for aviation, as well as teaching, but he also talks a lot about providing value to customers, or as I see it, the people you care about, whether they be customers, or people you want to inspire, or people you want to help. Only when you provide value can you possibly have any real, lasting impact on the world.

I feel like this is an area I struggle with.

I want to provide value, but I often feel like there are people in aviation who simply know more than me, or that have more to offer than me so I will just keep quiet and let them do it. While there are tons of people who know more than me, I still have value to provide to the community, I just need to figure out what my niche is. Maybe it is the lesser known parts of the industry, seeing as how I am a navigator who has a very small, and shrinking, footprint in the industry. However, it is often some of the smallest footprints that can have the biggest impact when the time is right.

The area that I would like to create an impact in, is in the creation of pilots. I intentionally didn’t use the term flight training because I think we need to change the conversation and stop just looking at the problem or else we will never see the solution (one of my favorite scenes in the movie Patch Adams if you recognize the concept). I could be wrong, but not a whole lot has changed in the realm of pilot training in decades. Sure sims are becoming more common, and there are some cool advances in VR that may bear some fruit, but at its heart, it is still the same process.

Change for the sake of change is never a good idea, but it seems apparent to me that the creation of pilots could use an overhaul. I don’t know what exactly that looks like, but I find I learn more and create when I vocalize and discuss, so that is what I am trying to do here. I would love to hear your ideas and thoughts on the matter.

One idea I had was to create a system where students are able to get their early ratings, or maybe even all the way to an ATP, on a sort of scholarship fund that funds itself on a portion of the pilot’s salary from their dream airline job for maybe 10 years or something, just to throw out a number. It would obviously need a starting seed fund, and would take some time to bear real fruits, but I have learned that the best organizations are built around a community that cares about each other, and that is something I don’t think the aviation community takes advantage of nearly enough. Sure we are friendly with each other, for the most part, and we are happy to share a $100 hamburger run together, but I think there is a lot more we could do to truly foster and mentor the younger generation. Interest in aviation as a whole has waned as air travel has become more commonplace, and only the effort and passion of those of us that love it will ever re-excite this generation.

Another area that intrigues me is in fostering the growth of aviation in developing countries. Admittedly, flying a plane is a bit of a stretch for people who hardly have food and water, but if we can educate and inspire these people they will inevitably be the tide that raises all of the other boats around them. This doesn’t even necessarily have as much to do with flying as it does with teaching skills to these people in line with an education that will help them truly change the world. This train of thought definitely stems from having recently read the incredibly inspiring The Promise of a Pencil by Adam Braun, who has built hundreds of schools in some of the most poor parts of the world to allow kids to pursue their dreams of an education. Another must read if you enjoy learning about the greatness of people and the good going on in the world. They want to learn so bad that we are missing a great opportunity by not teaching them the skills that would dramatically change their lives forever. These thoughts may be straying from my message a little, but I wanted to share all of the insights I had today.

Originally I had one more thought, but decided it should have its own post so you can see that later, along with a sweet video I filmed on my flight today.

As you see, I don’t have some grand design to solve the pilot shortage, but I wanted to share my thoughts in a forum where maybe we can have some discussion. I just love this industry so much, and I hate the idea that anyone who truly loves it should not be able to be a part of it for something as trivial as money. There is plenty of that out there if we can just direct it properly.

Thank you for humoring me, assuming you made it this far, and I look forward to having some dialogue on the subject.