Direct Aviation SimulatorA new tenant to the Port of Bremerton in July of this year, Direct Aviation LLC, provides student pilots with unique private or professional commercial pilot training on a custom glass cockpit simulator. Direct Aviation has recently moved to its new location at Bremerton National Airport from Hayward Executive Airport in California. Though not new to the area, owner and business operator, Gene Deutsch, initially did all his pilot training downstairs from where his business operates today – at Avian Flight Center (Avian). “I’ve known the owners of Avian Flight Center, Pat and Gin, for a long time and so it was an easy transition to come up here. I wanted to make my business available to Avian."
Direct Aviation’s simulator is custom built to be broad enough to simulate almost all G1000 planes – 172s 182s and other small airplanes. Avian currently has traditional mechanical gauge simulators and so Direct Aviation provides additional training opportunities to student pilots.
When Gene had enough hours to get his commercial license he went to Hawaii and started to fly private air tours around the island of Oahu and connected with Mokulele Airlines. He started doing air tours in the morning and was a first officer for Mokulele Airlines in the evenings. “I’ve been affiliated with them ever since,” he states.
Today, Gene primarily does glass cockpit training because all the airplanes Mokulele Airlines fly in Hawaii and Southern California are Cessna 208 Caravan G1000s which the simulator correlates to. “There are a lot of first officers coming into ground school for Mokulele Airlines with 200 or 300 hours of flight time but that do not have any glass cockpit training. They are bug-eyed just staring at the screen,” says Gene. He provides a supplemental training program for pilots before they go to Maui for ground training. “Some people come here before they go to ground training because they know of me, but then there are people that decide to go to the ground training but end up sort of failing out because as soon as the airline gets them into their simulator they aren’t prepared,” Gene explains.
Most of the students Gene has seen so far at his new location are people that have failed out of the ground school in Hawaii and sent to Bremerton. At Mokulele Airlines, first officers are trained the same way as the captains because if anything were to ever happen to the captain the first officer would need to take over that aircraft that could have 8-9 passengers. Gene adds, “If students don’t understand this out there – they get sent to Direct Aviation to understand it and then they go back. Instead of the airline saying, ‘nope, you’re not going to make it, good luck – NEXT!’, we don’t give up on anyone – so we’ll do this training program and get everyone up to speed and then send them back. It’s usually a very successful program for students because it’s on their own time.”
The simulator training through Direct Aviation takes students various amounts of time to complete. Gene has observed that some students understand it very quickly – especially the younger people that come in with a really good understanding of video games. It can take them a day or two while others may require a week or two for the information to sink in and the muscle memory to develop. Gene says, “I’ve trained captains that have retired from other big airlines but still wanted to fly and come over to Mokulele Airlines but it’s a completely different flight management system and they are bug-eyed when they get here – even though they’ve been flying for 40 years! Professionally, it’s new to them. The age of people and what they're accustomed to determine how long it takes them to complete the training.”
As the aviation industry changes with more demand for pilots Gene sees the demand growth mostly in the bigger cities but it is something that Direct Aviation, in partnership with Avian Flight Center, is looking to address. “We’re working on getting more of a flow of students here and away from the larger airports.” Gene has also observed the industries struggle to maintain CFIs - certified flight instructors - as a lot of airlines are providing means to become captains quickly.
Direct Aviation trains pilots to become commercial pilots but also CFIs and CFIIs (certified flight instructor – instrument). However, with Gene’s work with Mokulele Airlines and his affiliation with companies that hire after pilots complete relatively low hours of flying, many of his students get their commercial pilots license and immediately leave to start careers flying rather than take some time to become instructors themselves. “It used to not be that way,” Gene explains, “it used to be you had to teach for a while to build hours and now we're losing the instructors because the airlines or so shorthanded they’ve lowered their minimums for hiring. A lot of airlines are putting out $5 to $20K sign-on bonuses.”
Most students that go through commercial training go through it quickly. “It’s sort of a fire hose of information so I always recommend pilots to teach for a while and then go to the airlines – the jobs are always there. You actually learn more teaching than when you went through the training because you repeat everything a lot – when you’re talking about rules and regulations, the FAA flying instruments, etc. - it really gets implanted in your head and THEN when you go to the airlines you’re more of a solid pilot.”
To encourage more pilots to become CFIs, Gene plans to continue providing quality training, with hopes to get a second simulator operational as well as two planes for training. By next spring Gene anticipates having one or two G1000 airplanes based out of Bremerton National Airport to be used in conjunction with the fleet that Avian currently has of about five to six planes. “We have two businesses working together,” Gene says. Currently, Avian is a VFR outfit (Visual Flight Rules) but with the use of G1000s, Avian can become an IFR outfit (Instrument Flight Rules). “Avian won’t have to shut down in the winter when the clouds show up and so it can increase business. I can see this place growing,” says Gene.
When asked what he sees as the benefit to having General Aviation based out of Bremerton compared to California, Gene chuckles, “Oh man, it’s quieter here.”
At Hayward Executive Airport daily operations were so busy he often didn’t get to concentrate on each student he was training. “Here I can get a personal connection. It’s more one and one – I want to be able to give the student everything their paying for.”
Several students from Avian Flight center have shown interest in what Direct Aviation has to offer because of the planes he provides (he has a G1000 operating out of California still for students), the supplemental training program for glass cockpit, and Direct Aviation’s affiliation and reputation with airlines like Mokulele Airlines. Almost all Gene’s students continue on to work for Mokulele Airlines. “When I go over to Hawaii and fly, I’m the captain and I’ve got one of my first officers who I taught to be a commercial pilot. It’s really neat to see the growth in all these students and them doing well.” Gene says.
Direct Aviation is located at 8900 State Hwy 3, Suite 212 Bremerton, WA 98312.
Visit directaviationllc.com to learn more.
