AOPA BRIEFING IS IT ABOUT THE MONEY?

Chris Martinus: President Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association South Africa

In October’s column I explored the benefits of learning to fly. How it is a discipline that improves your cognitive abilities, and how learning such skills and literally broadening your horizons has benefits that go far beyond just being able to safely pilot a light aircraft.

I CATALOGUED NOT JUST HOW this is something that is confirmed by scientific research, but has been adopted by corporations such as EPI-USE, a large software multinational, as a means to make their budding CEOs into better CEOs.

There are even unexpected benefits: after reading last month’s article, EPI-USE partner in Boston USA quipped in an email to me that he took great pleasure in informing his wife that his brain is now bigger than the average!

This is great news for the aviation training industry if this trend expands to other corporates. So I polled a few aviation training organisations to get some general ideas about the challenges and prospects facing ATOs in South Africa. There are many challenges, yet training is nevertheless faring reasonably well, taking into consideration the economic conditions and the high costs of fuel and maintenance.

One issue which is a matter of great concern in the Cape area is the inability of ATNS to provide services due to staffing shortages. This has resulted in NOTAMs being issued to periodically ban VFR and training flights in controlled airspaces in the Cape Town region.