The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association has launched the new MyFlightTraining website, designed to be a powerful tool for student pilots to help them through flight training and track their progress. MyFlightTraining takes the content of Flight Training magazine and personalizes it for students anywhere in their flight training curriculum.
“Learning to fly is always challenging, and students need all the support they can get,” said AOPA President Craig Fuller. “By bringing such an extensive depth and variety of resources together in one place, we can help students get the most from their training experience and increase their chances of earning a pilot certificate.”
Open only to student pilots, the site tracks a participant’s progress with six key milestones—first flight, the student pilot certificate, solo, the written exam, solo cross-countries, and the practical test. Students come to the site and enter the successful completion of a milestone. The milestones help to break the flight training journey down into manageable stages, while making sure that in addition to celebrating the end goal of a pilot certificate, other successes along the way are acknowledged and celebrated.
The site puts into action key attributes of AOPA’s extensive research around the optimal flight training experience. The research report, which can be found online, showed that student support is key to success. MyFT puts a strong emphasis on information sharing and focuses on providing useful and relevant information at each milestone. Through online resources and access to the AOPA Pilot Information Center, students will have additional support tools available to them 24/7. MyFT also embraces the importance of community and provides opportunities for recognition and social connection. Participants can upload photos and details of their milestones on MyFlightTraining, their own Facebook page, or the Flight Training Facebook page.
The journey includes incentives as well. Anyone who completes an introductory flight will be offered a free logbook. After obtaining a student pilot certificate, a student will have the opportunity to get a free t-shirt to wear during their solo that features a dotted line on the back of the shirt for an instructor to cut to ensure that the “shirt tail” tradition stays alive. There’s a monthly sweepstakes where any student who enters a milestone could win a $1,000 toward their flight training or one of four $100 gift certificates from ASA, Jeppesen, King Schools, and Sporty’s Pilot Shop. MyFlightTraining is completely free for student pilots, and participants do not have to be AOPA members to join. Those who are already pilots will not be able to enroll, but can see an overview of the program from the demo video on the homepage.
