HG Media produces a series of FAQ videos for Princeton Airport. In this video, Pete Rafle, a Princeton Flying School Instructor, discusses many of the most common reasons that students are attracted to take flying lessons to learn to fly and get their private pilot’s license.
It has always been the excitement of flying, just the actual act of leaving the ground and being able to be free to make a machine perform almost in a choreographic way. You can have a lot of fun with an airplane. You can do a lot of things with an airplane that are just strictly fun, games, play. Airplanes are also tools, and you can fly from point A to point B, and if you’ve got a vacation you want to go to or if you’ve got a business appointment that you need to go to, an airplane is an ideal way of going, a small personal airplane, without having to go through all of the rigmarole of the scheduled airlines. A lot of the people who have the means and have the need find that general aviation is really the way to conduct their lives.
As far as kids, I would love to see more teenagers interested in aviation. We certainly are applying all of the digital technology to aviation these days, but those of us who are old enough to remember the analog days, where we had to compute everything ourselves in our heads or with small circular slide roles, causes some of these teenagers eyes to glaze over. There is a way of getting them involved in this, either through Boy Scouts and merit badges or school technology clubs. As long as they have adults who have some knowledge and interest in aviation, I’m sure we were able to attract more kids. The civil air patrol is another avenue, and we used to have a group here that would operate out of Princeton and it would get kids.
The other demographic is really the older male. I don’t mean older, because I’m older. Guys over 35 or 40 whose kids now, maybe they’re at the point in their lives when they now have a little excess moneys. When kids go away to college or they’re out of college, suddenly that money is still being spent, let’s spend it on me instead of the kids. We have a lot of people starting flying at age 40 to 50. They do generally pretty well. Women, I wish we had more women interested. We do offer what we call a pinch hitter course, where many women are spouses or partners of pilots, who want to learn more about it. Many times, that leads to them wanting their license. Women are really, from an instructor’s point of view, ideal to teach, because they want to understand exactly how things work before you get in the airplane. Most men just say, “It’s okay, just show me what to push.” No. I like women because they’re more methodical, generally. That’s good.
A lot of older guys, as this aviation community ages, we have a lot of pilots who are over 80, still flying. Many of them, their insurance companies will not allow them to fly complex airplanes unless there’s an instructor with them. I have several older pilots that I fly with regularly. I don’t have to do anything, they fly perfectly well by themselves, but I just need to be there. I’ve flown with people from age 12 or 14 all the way up to 90, was my oldest student. They’re all interested in the one thing, and that’s the airplane, the history, the technology, the fun of it. If it’s not fun, why do it?
This video is an excellent example of the power of FAQ Videos; they provide valuable information by real experts in areas or relevance to you. Video brings your marketing messages to life!
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