Hello All,

I wanted to inform everyone of the challenges and issues with training in Lancairs.  I would encourage those that have questions to please email or call me directly to discuss and offer further points to clarify.  When we began training in Lancairs many years ago it was simply through the desire to bring "Jet like, type rating style" training for those flying a complex, high performance single engine aircraft and reduce the accident rate.  The accident rate reduced dramatically and those receiving training were quite successful.  The flaw was the business model.  I believe instructors should be well paid and compared our rates then and now to that of Citation II captains daily rate and used that as a bench mark.  Our instructors cannot be the type that Cirrus uses, the classic low time CFI that is building time and you pay them $100/day.  They would not be safe. We have had four points of criterion for the Lancair CFI. Jet experience, Lancair experience, Aerobatic experience, and Tailwheel experience.  Not all points are required but a matrix is used to determine their qualifications.  This has proven to be a very successful model of qualifying instructors but has made it very difficult to get enough of them.  

Over the years we have raised our daily rate that we charge for training because of the financial losses.  It has proven to be very expensive to train folks in these airplanes for lots of reasons.  The paperwork involved is more demanding, than literally flying a much more complex jet. Some of our expenses included office supplies, web site, training curriculum development, phone usage (I average, personally 3000 minutes per month), office phone, Internet access, airline fees traveling to all of the shows, hotels, traveling to meet the Insurance companies, traveling to Lancair for a variety of meetings, an average of 2 hours per client spent prior to training commencing, accounting, invoicing, Instructor fees and a host of other costs that most people can imagine.  Realizing the flaw in the model we created the Seminar concept for recurrent training.  It saves the client the expenses of the instructor and we are able to get 20-40 people trained for their recurrency requirements.  Well, unfortunately that model is flawed due to weather issues, cancellations, mechanical problems etc.  Each seminar after paying the instructor fees, hotel, airline travel to and from, food and miscellaneous fees is a complete loss.  That lent us to the need to get hosts at each location.  Through our hosts graciously providing us  with housing and the instructors happy to stay in a persons home, it moved from a loss to a break even, if we overlooked the time commitment.  Why keep doing the seminars?  Because it kept the prices down for recurrent training for the clients and allowed us to get many people done at once, and reduce the training need throughout the year.

Scheduling is our biggest weakness for Lancair training and we know.  In the beginning Lancair was to provide a person to handle scheduling, that didn't work for lots of reasons, no ones fault.  Then David Hickman handled it for a few years and it worked very well, he did it as a volunteer, was not paid.  He knew what the profit and loss was and refused to take an income.  I bought dinners instead.  David tragically died and ever since scheduling has been an issue.  In an effort to offset the financial issues, I fly all of the time, 320 days last year spent flying or traveling to the work site.  I only spent 48 days in my own home.  Not a complaint but rather a point to the fact that we are all dedicated to making this work and finding a solution to the flawed business model.  Why not hire a full time person to answer the phone and coordinate scheduling?  There is no money for it.  Every year has proven to be a loss for Lancair training and I am happy to explain this individually.  Despite this, we have hired a full time person that will answer the phone Monday through Friday between 8am and 5pm Eastern time at 727-524-9300, beginning Monday 8 September. This will finally solve the problem.

Originally we tried the model of having instructors located throughout the country in regions.  Not enough Lancairs flying to support regionalized instructors.  The guys on the West coast were swamped and the guys in places like Chicago didn't fly enough to meet the minimum requirements of the insurance companies to act as an instructor.  Each Lancair CFI is required to fly a specific amount of time, in type, to maintain their currency to instruct and its far more than the FAA requirements.  As a result CFI's began airlining all over the country to work with clients.  This is the current system for initial training and some recurrent, we know its not perfect.  Throw in some independent instructors sending fraudulent HPAT certificates to AIG and everyone suffers.

We looked at creating a dedicated Legacy and ES for training and there was financially no way to make the money work.  There just is not enough new Lancair pilots to even come close to supporting the planes.  It came out to roughly 20 days per month of flying to justify a dedicated trainer.  We don't come close to that number just for the Legacy and even less for the ES.  Hence we are reliant on the factory airplanes for training. 

Like many of you, I have been doing sim based training for other planes for quite some time and there is real value using sims.  When we get a new Lancair client we ask them how much flying, what type of planes, and if they are instrument CURRENT.   All in an effort to tailor and provide an estimate of his needs.  The answers are often surprising, student pilot building a IV, no instrument rating and I bought a turbine, on and on.  The sim will not help these folks initially, they need experience and basic training and they are asking to do all of it in their Lancair.  Just like those going to sim training in jets who are flying regularly it is an opportunity to hone their present skills and simulate emergencies.  Having the fundamentals and skills in general before they show up or they won't pass.  Eclipse has faced this exact scenario that is parallel to the Lancair scenario of pilots that are not even close to being current and they have a huge failure rate.  In the Lancairs you don't fail, but they end up requiring many many days of training to complete a VFR checkout. Everyone knows pilots that are barely safe and not current, encourage them to pursue more training.  Some may reply that they don't fly IFR...Doesn't matter, keeping your skills sharp makes for a better pilot. 

In the past the Sim was not an option due to how expensive they are to model a :Lancair.  We have been working closely with a sim partner to develop a sim that will model the IV, Legacy, ES and Evolution via software and make the changes for the different scenarios and be a full motion Sim.  By offering all varieties of Lancairs it should be possible financially, but the sim company has not given us the full and final estimate.  It has been proven many many times that sims, on the average, without an instructor do not have much benefit.  Are there exceptions, of course but we are speaking on the average.
If the sim scenario works it will not be available for about 8 months to a year.  In the meantime we will continue our dedication to training everyone that wants training, it is voluntary.

The accidents have shown the the plane disregards prior experience.  There have been many accidents with high time pilots, medium time, and low time with a common denominator of not receiving training.  Training still, on occasions does not prevent people from making big mistakes and displaying a lack of judgement, but it will develop your skills to the standard required to fly a Lancair the rest is up to you.

No one thinks they possibly will have an accident the day they go flying, for lots of reasons.  However, we accept a risk every time we fly any airplane.  Part of your job as a pilot is to mitigate that risk.  Training is one method of mitigation, no matter how good you think you are.

Throughout the years I have never received an email, phone call or fax from a pilot that said I cannot afford training and here is why.  If someone called us with a legitimate reason for their inability to pay for training we would provide that person with a financial solution to get their training completed.  If it was all about the money and not an ideal, we would not be training people in Lancairs, none of us.  We want to create safe, proficient pilots that further the freedom of high speed personal travel.  These are great planes that keep getting better!

Please contact me directly with any suggestions, needs or solutions.  We are open to all.