By Chris Cobb [The Herald-Zeitung, Published January 20, 2010] Yan Wang was a long way from home Tuesday when he stepped into the cockpit of a single-engine Cessna Skyhawk on the runway at the New Braunfels Municipal Airport. It’s more than 7,000 miles from New Braunfels to his home in China’s Shanxi province, and for Wang and more than 100 other students from around the globe studying at the airport, he said the journey is well worth it. After all, he’s learning to fly. “All of us have a dream of being pilots, and this is a way to fulfill our dreams,” said the 26-year-old.

Wang is a student at Wright Flyer’s Academy, a flight school that will become the largest tenant in the history of the local airport when it finishes moving its entire operation from San Antonio to New Braunfels at the end of the month. Of the 180 students currently enrolled in the school, two-thirds of them hail from other countries. And although Wright Flyers offers training to anyone of any nationality, the bulk of those international students are like Wang — Chinese nationals working to become pilots in a growing Chinese commercial aviation industry.

“As China has prospered and grown economically in recent years, so has their airline industry to keep up with that increased demand,” said Wright Flyers owner Rand Goldstein. “Subsequently, the demand for pilot training is very strong in China.” Goldstein, who has a background in international business and a master’s degree in international finance, bought the San Antonio-based company in 1998. Noticing the demand from China in recent years, he worked to make Wright one of around 30 flight schools in the world that is certified to train Chinese pilots through the Civil Aviation Administration of China — the Chinese equivalent of the FAA. By working with Chinese airline companies to train their employees, Goldstein now has around 100 employed, college-educated Chinese pilots earning their FAA certification at Wright. Wang is an employee of China’s Hainan Airlines. “They’re all well-educated, very disciplined, hard-working people,” he said.

“We’re very excited to have them here,” added New Braunfels Airport Director Lenny Llerena. “They’ve been great for this airport.” Llerena would know of the importance of having not only a flight school, but an international flight school at the local airport. The airport director is a native of Quito, Ecuador, and came to this country to learn to fly at an aviation academy in Daytona, Fla. “I was one of those guys,” he said. “I definitely feel a connection, and we’re happy we can accommodate them. Having another flight school is nothing but a good thing for this airport.” Llerena said the added business from Wright would boost fuel sales and provide increased air traffic — which he said would both help the airport tower become part of the FAA’s contract tower program and help secure grant funding for improved infrastructure because of the increased use.

Wright is currently occupying what was previously the hangar of Silver State Helicopters. The company also plans to use an adjacent hanger to be built with funds from the New Braunfels Industrial Development Corporation. Goldstein said he expected to move in by this summer, with a 20-year lease.

“We’re committed to this community in the long-term,” he said. Goldstein said after contract re-negotiations broke down with Wright at San Antonio International Airport, he initially wanted to move to the Hondo airport. It was Llerena who convinced Wright flyers to instead make New Braunfels its base of operations. “He made us feel welcome,” Goldstein said. “And this way we hold onto the San Antonio market, and have access to the San Marcos and Austin markets as well.” And for international students, they said they’re receiving higher quality training than they’d be getting at home.

“You can see a huge difference between American-trained pilots and ones that have trained somewhere else,” said Mario Fernandez, a 26-year-old Wright Flyers student from Monterrey, Mexico. He said many of the other pilots are also learning another valuable skill — how to speak English. “English is the international language of aviation,” Fernandez said. “You need to know how to speak it if you want to be an international pilot.” Wang said the language barrier has been difficult for some other students, but they have so far enjoyed living in New Braunfels. “People have been very kind,” he said. And the students said they definitely enjoy what they’re doing. “Nothing beats flying,” said. “There’s just no feeling like it.” [Copyright © 2010 The Herald-Zeitung]

We will relocate to our improved and expanded facilities at the New Braunfels Municipal Airport by January 31, 2010.

For nearly two years, Wright Flyers scouted airport locations and facilities to address its growing customer base. We carefully evaluated numerous training sites in the greater San Antonio area, including the Hondo, New Braunfels, San Marcos and Stinson airports. Our extensive search led us to conclude that the New Braunfels Municipal Airport offers by far the best facilities to meet and exceed the needs of our customers.

The New Braunfels Municipal Airport location offers our customers some significant benefits and opportunities, including:

-Less congested airport environment

-Friendly and supportive tower operations

-Welcoming and collaborative airport management team that understands our values

-Virtually unlimited future expansion possibilities

-$9M of funded KBAZ improvements in process

-Professionally designed, state-of-the-art office and flight training facilities

-New and used aircraft brokerage, and flight options advisory services

-Close proximity to world-class recreation activities and outlet store shopping

-Convenient to San Antonio area customers

-Access to new customers in the San Marcos and Austin areas

Thank you for your past support, which has made these improvements and expansion possible. We are excited to share this new chapter in Wright Flyers' history with you, and look forward to welcoming you to our new facilities at the New Braunfels Municipal Airport.

Wright Flyers added the flight school industry's latest flight simulation trainer to its fleet in July. The Redbird FMX is a high-quality, feature-rich motion AATD with standard features that are anything but standard. With wrap-around visuals, a fully enclosed cockpit, reconfigurable construction, and of course a motion platform, the FMX serves up a level of realism that is simply unavailable in other training devices on the market.

The demand for new pilots allows many beginning students to go from zero time to the right seat of a regional jet in a couple of years. But any pilot with designs on flying for a major airline will need a four-year degree, and to make that easier, Wright Flyers Academy and Embry Riddle Aeronautical University have formed a partnership to give students who earn their ratings at Wright Flyers 36 credit hours toward a degree. In essence, that could take about a year off a four-year degree program at ERAU, not to mention a sizeable savings in tuition.

Wright Flyers Academy has trained future airline pilots in the San Antonio area for nearly 30 years, and in 2007 earned the Cessna Aircraft Company’s prestigious Platinum Award. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is the world’s largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace. For 8 consecutive years ERAU has earned the top spot in the annual “America’s Best Colleges” guide published by U.S. News & World Report magazine in the category of “Aerospace/Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering” programs. For more information, please call Marc Silva, Wright Flyers’ Manager of Pilot Services at 210-820-3800, or send him an email.

The Skycatcher will feature a Garmin G300 avionics system. Information is presented in a single, split-screen primary flight display (PFD) and multi-function display (MFD), or as two full-screen displays with an optional second screen. The aircraft will be capable of day and night, visual flight rules (VFR) operations. Preliminary design parameters for the SkyCatcher include a maximum gross weight of 1,320 pounds, a service ceiling of 15,500 feet, a useful load of 490 pounds and a usable fuel capacity of 24 gallons. It has a cabin width at shoulder height of more than 44 inches, equaling that of the much-larger, 6-place Cessna 206 Stationair. It features two top-hinged cabin entry doors and forward pivoting seats giving access to a 12.5 cubic-foot baggage compartment. The aircraft will have tricycle landing gear with a castering nose wheel and standard dual toe-actuated disc brakes.

Our latest class of students has joined our Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) approved Chinese Airline Pilot Training Program. Wright Flyers has trained more than 100 Chinese pilots since it was certified by the CAAC in 2006.

This new class of students will join future airline pilots from the United States, and more than twenty other countries, who have selected Wright Flyers Academy for their professional training.

It's one of those things that's been intuitively accepted -- glass cockpit technology improves situational awareness, thereby enhancing safety. Now a study published this week by the AOPA Air Safety Foundation (ASF) confirms that technologically advanced aircraft (TAA) are involved in fewer accidents when compared with the overall general aviation fleet. The analysis shows that advanced aircraft account for 2.8 percent of the GA fleet, but were involved in only 1.5 percent of the accidents. Most notable was the difference in accidents related to fuel. TAA have fuel-monitoring and warning systems, and there was not a single fuel-related accident reported in the ASF study. In other GA aircraft, fuel-management accidents occur at a rate of almost three per week.