Dr. Amy Hoover of Ellensburg, Washington has been named the 2022 National Certified Flight Instructor of the Year. Amy graduated from Texas Christian University in 1983 with a B.S. in Geology, completed her Masters in Geology at Oregon State University in 1987, and her Ph.D. in Education in 2005 from Oregon State University. Amy has dedicated over three decades of her life to advancing aviation education with 3,000+ hours of instruction time given in aircraft and an astounding 15,000+ hours of ground instruction given. She specializes in tailwheel and mountain flying instruction. In the summers when not teaching at the University Amy goes home to central Idaho where she has been teaching backcountry flying for 30 years.
In 2019, Amy was the primary author of the ASA book “Mountain, Canyon, and Backcountry Flying” which has sold over 5,000 copies to date. Rod Machado, who wrote the book’s foreword put it simply “All pilots should own a copy of this wonderful book.”
Amy has served in many professional capacities in her career. She is a Full Professor in the Aviation Department at Central Washington University, where she serves as a flight check instructor and assistant chief ground instructor. Amy has mentored new pilots through the International 99s, Women in Aviation, ALPA ACE, Alpha Eta Rho, and the FAA’s ACE Academy. Students of Amy’s have commented she makes many complex courses and subjects fun, interesting, and easy to understand.
