Please contact Dispatch at 830-221-4500 (or toll free 1-877-WFLYERS), or email Marc Silva (marc@wrightflyers.com) to request access to ETA. ETA (Education & Training Administration) is a 100% web-based training management system designed, by Talon Systems, developed specifically for the management of flight training. The system provides our customers and employees unprecedented tools for managing scheduling, curriculum, security, student records, resources, planning tools, flight following/operations and more.

Wright Flyers will close on the 4th of July to allow our customers and staff to spend time with family and friends. We wish you a safe and happy Independence Day.

[By Zeke MacCormack - Express-News Web Posted: 06/07/2010 12:00 CDT] The opening of Wright Flyers Academy has added an Asian flavor and an economic boost to the county seat of Medina County. Would-be pilots from China comprise most of the roughly 120 students at the school, which was drawn here in April by uncluttered skies, spacious facilities and a welcoming community.

“There's so much more free airspace here,” said Aaron Shields, one of 26 flying instructors on the staff of the business that previously operated in San Antonio and New Braunfels.

Shuai “Danny” Zhang is among approximately 80 Chinese students whose curriculum takes about a year to complete. “I like the environment, and the Hondo people are so friendly,” said Zhang, 25. The native of northwest China said he was placed in the school by Hainan Airlines in 2009 after graduating from college with a degree in executive management.

The Encinito Apartments complex on Avenue U is happy to host the Chinese contingent that's about four times the total number of Asians recorded here in the 2000 census. “They kind of keep to themselves,” said James Nielsen, apartment staffer. “They're quiet, well-mannered.” The Chinese students are a strong presence on nearby soccer fields and basketball courts, and in the produce section at the local H-E-B.

Mayor Jim Danner said many local businesses have seen a boost in sales because of the school that also benefits city coffers through fuel sales for its 27 planes and its rental of a hangar and taxiways. The city spent about $60,000 to renovate the 30,000-square-foot hangar used by the school, which pitched in about $30,000. “It's going very well,” said Danner, who wooed academy owner Rand Goldstein to move here for more than a year. Besides signing the school to a 15-year lease that nets Hondo about $70,000 a year, Danner said the city plans to sell it three acres by the airstrip for permanent quarters for students.

The school's chief pilot, Marge Balazs, said some San Antonio-area students commute to class, including military veterans who can use their GI Bill benefits toward the tuition that starts at about $8,000 a year. “It's working out well,” she said of the move to Hondo.

Airport Manager Tim Fousse said the increased number of take-offs and landings also should improve chances of securing future grant funding for the airstrip that was built in 1942 by the military. Hondo Army Air Field was home to the country's largest school for navigators during World War II, officials say, boosting the town's population during the conflict from 2,500 to 10,000 — roughly where it stands today. Limited military pilot training continued for decades after the base closed in 1946 and the 3,600-acre airport was deeded to the city, which sees it as an underutilized asset. Fousse called the arrival of Wright Flyers a great project for the airport. “One of the best things that could happen is to have a large flight school operating here,” Fousse said. “That's what the airport was designed for when the military built it.”

Wright Flyers has added the flight school industry's latest flight simulation trainer to its fleet. The Redbird FMX is a high-quality, feature-rich motion AATD with standard features that are anything but standard. With wrap-around visuals, a fully enclosed cockpit, reconfigurable construction, and of course a motion platform, the FMX serves up a level of realism that is simply unavailable in other training devices on the market.

The demand for new pilots allows many beginning students to go from zero time to the right seat of a regional jet in a couple of years. But any pilot with designs on flying for a major airline will need a four-year degree, and to make that easier, Wright Flyers Academy and Embry Riddle Aeronautical University have formed a partnership to give students who earn their ratings at Wright Flyers 36 credit hours toward a degree. In essence, that could take about a year off a four-year degree program at ERAU, not to mention a sizeable savings in tuition.

Wright Flyers Academy has trained future airline pilots in the San Antonio area for nearly 30 years, and in 2007 earned the Cessna Aircraft Company’s prestigious Platinum Award. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is the world’s largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace. For 8 consecutive years ERAU has earned the top spot in the annual “America’s Best Colleges” guide published by U.S. News & World Report magazine in the category of “Aerospace/Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering” programs. For more information, please call Marc Silva, Wright Flyers’ Manager of Pilot Services at 210-820-3800, or send him an email.

The Skycatcher will feature a Garmin G300 avionics system. Information is presented in a single, split-screen primary flight display (PFD) and multi-function display (MFD), or as two full-screen displays with an optional second screen. The aircraft will be capable of day and night, visual flight rules (VFR) operations. Preliminary design parameters for the SkyCatcher include a maximum gross weight of 1,320 pounds, a service ceiling of 15,500 feet, a useful load of 490 pounds and a usable fuel capacity of 24 gallons. It has a cabin width at shoulder height of more than 44 inches, equaling that of the much-larger, 6-place Cessna 206 Stationair. It features two top-hinged cabin entry doors and forward pivoting seats giving access to a 12.5 cubic-foot baggage compartment. The aircraft will have tricycle landing gear with a castering nose wheel and standard dual toe-actuated disc brakes.

Our latest class of students has joined our Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) approved Chinese Airline Pilot Training Program. Wright Flyers has trained nearly 200 Chinese pilots since it was certified by the CAAC in 2006.

This new class of students will join future airline pilots from the United States, and more than twenty other countries, who have selected Wright Flyers Academy for their professional training.