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Leesburg Airport a Hotbed for Instruction
Leesburg Airport a Hotbed for Instruction
By Joe Motheral
The Leesburg Executive Airport was founded in part by the late, iconic radio and television broadcaster Arthur Godfrey and plays host to five companies that provide flight training to potential pilots.
Bill English, the associate chief instructor at Aviation Adventure, said his firm employs 17 instructors “with a couple more in training who will be online soon. We do a lot of training toward the flight instructor certificate.”
As an instructor who has been in aviation for 40 years, English is responsible for making sure his instructors are fully qualified. “I take personal attention to our up-coming CFIs,” he said, “to insure they have a well-rounded experience.
“We also have a remarkably high percentage of female students and flight instructors,” he added, and “It feels like families are encouraging this.”
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is involved with flight training and Aviation Adventure (AA) has a Part 141 flight school status designation by the FAA.
With that rating, AA has a number of approved training categories. According to the FAA website, that includes private pilot training, commercial, recreational, instrument training and training to be a flight instructor. The other four Leesburg Airport flight schools— Aero Elite, ATB Flight School, flyAdvanced and NOVA Pilots—all have FAA ratings of a similar nature.
AA has a fleet of 16 airplanes, mostly Cessna 172s and three Piper Cherokees. In addition, they have Cessna 182s and a Diamond DA40 that English said “are excellent for taking trips. We also have two multi-engine airplanes, a Grumman Cougar and a very high tech Diamond Twinstar with computercontrolled turbo-diesel engines.”
Airport Director Scott Coffman said he was pleased with the flight training at his facility.
“Many student pilots who took their first flight lesson at Leesburg have gone on to long pilot careers,” he said, adding that many of their students also become flight instructors teaching others to become regional and national airline pilots.
Coffman and his organization do face significant challenges—one being how busy the airport has become. “Because of the airport’s location, we attract student pilots from all over Northern Virginia. And flight training is prohibited in restricted and security airspace near Washington D.C.”
The five private firms that teach flying can crowd runways and airspace.
“The air traffic control tower provides services to the pilots to sequence them to the single runway,” he said. “The airport is working to construct a new control tower facility to meet the growing demand.”
Noise is also an issue.
“It’s a challenge for many airports and as our airport traffic grows, its impact on surrounding neighborhoods does as well,” he said. “We work with our flight schools, pilots and the FAA to give pilots guidance on how they can decrease noise over neighborhoods.”
Taylor Dais, once a flight instructor at Aviation Adventure, said that cutting the noise over neighborhoods means flying at higher altitudes. He then spelled out the sequence of flight training: “First, private flying, then instrument for flying in the clouds, becoming an instructor and training to become a commercial pilot.”
And how long does it take to get a pilot’s license?
According to Bill English, it varies depending on the student’s frequency at the controls with an instructor, but usually within several months.
“We are patient,” he said.
