Posted December 13th, 2010

Scenario: You just departed KSBA, and weather ahead is pretty intense.  Your flight planning showed the storm moving East.  As you can see, you are now going to have to fly through this.

1. What resources do you have in the cockpit?
2.What frequencies can you call for weather data?  How do you find them in the cockpit?
3. How can ATC help you?
4. Would you continue?  As you can see behind the plane, a Red cell is moving back over the airport.

Posted December 9th, 2010

Training in San Diego is arguably, the best airspace environment to learn to fly. The southern California area contains some of the busiest and most challenging airspace in the world. Throughout your training you will become increasingly more comfortable in this very diverse airspace environment. Within an hour flight radius of Coats Flight Academy, there are 2 class B, 5 Class C, 21 Class D, 3 restricted military zones and over 70 uncontrolled airports.

Within that same distance, you will overfly endless miles of coastline to the west and overfly and land at airfields as high as 8,000 ft MSL. In the San Diego flight operations area, we are blessed with beautiful weather the majority of the year. However, the coastal fog layer and diverse weather of California gives us ample opportunity to train IFR in real instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC). Furthermore, your training will take you to place such as Las Vegas, The Grand Canyon, Phoenix, lake Tahoe and Mexico.

Living in San Diego is to enjoy the best that California has to offer. San Diego is widely recognized as one of the best places, in the word, to live. The actual lifestyle in San Diego covers a wide range of activities from sailing and surfing, to jogging or playing golf. Whether you are riding your bike or going for an evening stroll, the natural beauty of the San Diego area surrounds you wherever you go. San Diego’s coastline is dominated by beautiful sandy beaches and boardwalks. having some of the best restaurants in California, San Diego offers a very diverse and wide range of dining options. Furthermore, San Diego is home to the major league Baseball team the San Diego padres and the NFL San Diego Chargers. In San Diego, the weather averages 70 degrees(F), with 267 days of sun per year. San Diego was rated the #2 place to live in the U.S. ina nationwide poll conducted by Pew Research Center in 2008.

Posted December 8th, 2010

Little did I ever imagine, that one day my son Rodrigo, would follow my footsteps, until the day that he approached me at my deck, where I was studying a system on hydraulics. He said, “DAD, do you have time for me?”

I stopped doing what I had at hand and told him to join me, so he could tell me what was on his mind.

“Dad”, he said, “I want to be an aviator just like you.”

I was full of life, to hear those words, so I started on the task to look for the best flight school in San Diego, C.A. After a couple of days, I was fortunate to drive to Montgomery Field where I found Coast Flight Training; a FAA authorized part 141 school with a curriculum that definitely satisfied the homework. After talking close to 1 hour with the Eric, Chris, the Chief Flight Instructor, gave us a walk around the facilities.

We have seen so much professionalism in their flight training. And now my son, Rodrigo, has made his first solo flight from Montgomery Field.

As a current airline Airbus 320 captain, I am very proud my son is learning to
fly at Coast Flight Training at Montgomery Field in San Diego, CA.

I still have six more years until I retire and it will be wonderful to one
day fly with my son at the controls of an Airbus 320.

Congratulations to all the wonderful staff at Coast Flight Training, Will the CEO, Chris, Chief Flight Instructor, Wes, my son Rodrigo’s flight instructor, Patricio and Cameo, the Student Concierge.

-Francisco Tames-

Posted December 1st, 2010

San Diego, CA (December 1, 2010)

Congratulations to Lisa Liguori! The newest Pilot from Coast.

Last Saturday, Lisa passed her Private Pilot’s checkride on the first try and is already making good use of her new found freedom. Lisa joined us earlier this year and has been training with Ronnie Greathouse flying both the SR20 and SR22.

As part of her regular training lessons, Lisa has flown to Catalina, Big Bear, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Lake Powell, Casper, WY, Appleton, WI and St Paul, MN, Rapid City, SD, and Halls Crossing, UT. and to top it off Lisa flew around Mt Rushmore!! She took the opportunity to attend the annual Oshkosh Fly-in earlier this year and flew the whole way out and back very early on in her training gaining extremely valuable real life experience with very diverse conditions to handle. Lisa has experienced every type of airport from large commercial to small town uncontrolled airports that averaged only 25 aircraft movements in a month, to a strategically placed runway at the top of rock formations, and everything in between.

Nothing in a book compares to experiencing the real thing. Lisa is now confident in her flying abilities and isn’t afraid of new locations and conditions. Lisa has now proceeded immediately into doing her IFR training with Ronnie.

Congratulations Lisa!

Posted November 17th, 2010

San Diego, CA (November 11, 2010)

AOPA China, on a research mission about international aviation best practices, visited Coast Flight Training & Management Inc. at Montgomery Airport in San Diego CA, on November 10, 2010. The flight training center was chosen as it is considered one of the best Cirrus Aircraft flight schools in the United States. It deploys its operations in a state of the art facility composed of six fully equipped classrooms and a large auditorium. Practical training is carried out in a modern -fully equipped- Cirrus SR20 and SR22 fleet. Flight lessons are duly complemented by semi practical instruction taught in a brand new full motion RedBird flight simulator.

Mr. Zhang Feng, AOPA’s China Vice President and the rest of the delegation took a tour of the Flight Academy, tested the flight simulator, and participated in several presentations in which Mr. Will Dryden, President of Coast Flight Training and Management Inc., provided the visitors with a review of concepts and practices behind an efficient operation of a flight academy. He emphasized on the importance of modern methodology, Cirrus hi-tech infrastructure, and stringent controls to graduate safe and highly proficient pilots. Those processes are supported by a very controlled and accurate maintenance program. Such an instrumental task is carried out by Crownair, one of the largest Cirrus Authorized Service Centers in Southern California and fully responsible for Coast Flight Training and Management’s fleet maintenance. Crownair executives demonstrated AOPA delegation the systems and techniques utilized to efficiently address the Coast’s fleet necessities. At the end of the visit, Montgomery airport’s manager presented the administrative and procedural guidelines offered by the airport’s facilities that enable adequate and professional pilot training.

Mr. Feng, at the conclusion of the visit, expressed that Coast Flight Training had exceeded all expectations and stood as a great model for best practices to be employed in the rapidly expanding Chinese aviation industry. He further asserted the value added to the delegation’s endeavor and confirmed the need to strengthen the links established with Coast Flight Training and Management Inc.

For more information on Coast Flight Training please visit www.iflycoast.com or contact Eric Midby, Chief Financial Officer at 858 279 4359.

Posted November 12th, 2010

Coast Flight Training would like to congratulate Sam Losada. Since he joined us in the beginning of October, Sam has completed an extraordinary amount of work. In three fast weeks, Sam completed his transition training in the SR20 as well as his instrument rating. Shortly thereafter, he was checked out in the SR22 and received his high performance endorsement. Sam then moved on to accomplish his differences training on the SR22 Turbo and Perspective.

As part of Sam’s SR22 Transition Course he integrated our Southwest Tour Training Program, which took him to Catalina Island, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. During this program he was able to see multiple locations while working on his training. If you are interested in seeing all of these destinations while you work towards your pilot license, please feel free to check out our brochure, which is attached.
Although here at Coast Flight Training we know that everyone learns at a different pace, we would like to extend a special congratulation to Sam for completing all these ratings and endorsements at such an exceptional pace.

Posted November 11th, 2010

Posted November 11th, 2010

Happy Veteran’s Day!

Coast Flight Training would like to take the time to thank all of those who have served in our nation’s military as well as their families.  Here at Coast, we support our troops daily as we are a VA approved flight school.  The VA will actually pay for you to get flight training so that you may enter the exciting world of commercial aviation.  Stop by Coast today for more details on how you can use your VA benefits that you earned for something unique that will benefit you for a lifetime.

Posted November 8th, 2010

Flight simulators are electronic representations of flying an airplane by replicating a generic cockpit. The point of these simulators is to help a pilot-in-training understand the basics of the aircraft and the feeling of flying without taking themselves off the ground. Flight simulators also have an interesting history. The history of flight simulator helped build the technologically advanced product that is used today.

During World War I the first edition of a flight simulator was produced and used. The equipment was originally developed to teach new pilots to fire machine guns. They were also trained on how to lead targets, or learn how to aim their weapon ahead of the target so that the ammo will land on the designated mark. One of the very first simulation devices was called the Link Trainer and was developed by Edwin Link in Binghamton, New York. However, this edition became ineffective to the Civil Aviation. They then switched over to the simulator called the Celestial Navigation Trainer in 1941. This simulator was preferred because of its size and its ability to seat an entire bomber crew so they could learn how to fly missions.

As technology changed, so did the flight simulators. In the 1940’s analog computers became available to solve the equations used during flight, which started the rise to the first computer simulation. Due to the new technologies, Curtiss-Wright developed the first full flight simulator in 1948. The simulator was supposed to represent the Pan American Stratocruiser. When it was first used and created, there was no movement or simulated external view. Even still, the entire cabin and their instruments functioned and the crew found it very effective at that time. There was continued growth through the 1950’s which allowed for movement and new systems.
The digital representations for flight simulators were later used in the 1960’s. In 1972 the collimated visual systems advanced the reality of a pilot’s point of view for distant visual scenes. However, these systems were only bound to cross-cockpit viewing capacity. Eventually, Rediffusion Company announced the Wide Angle Infinity Display Equipment (WAIDE) system that allowed viewing in distant-focus in seamless projection for both pilots as they sat side-by-side. Simulators have been a helpful tool for flight training for the commercial, personal and military aircrafts and are currently still in production and use by the aviation industry to enhance training for all aviation practices.

Today, there are multiple different types of trainers/simulators that are used for aviation students. Part Task Trainers (PTT) which cover one or more aircraft system and the Full Flight Simulators (FFS) that has a comprehensive aerodynamic and systems modeling are just two of the possible devices. There is also a Cockpit Procedure Trainer which is used to practice emergency checklists and cockpit familiarization; as well as the Aviation Training Device, which is used for flight concepts and procedures training; the Basic Instrument Training Device, which is primarily focused on generic instrument flight procedures; the Full Flight Simulator which is a training device for specific aircraft flight training; and the Flight and Navigation Procedures Trainer which is used for generic flight training.

Training in a simulator before the actual aircraft gives both the student pilot and instructor plenty of time to intimately learn the controls and avionics of the Cirrus. Being well educated in a flight simulator can help the pilot gain confidence during his or her training that will benefit them in a career as an aviator.

Posted November 1st, 2010

Ken is joining us from Switzerland. Wes Tipton, Ken’s CFI has put him through the ringer! In the last 13 days he started with “0″ flight time and completed his initial solo in the Cirrus SR20, N382CP. Something to be noted is he passed the FAA written exam with a 90% on the same day! He has to return to Switzerland shortly, but will be back early next year to finish up his PPL. Congratulations Ken!!!