Flight Training - February 2014 - 36

THE CLUB MODEL. SCFC is a for-profit
flight school that utilizes a membership
model widely practiced among flight
schools in the San Francisco Bay area.
Customers pay a monthly fee in addition to hourly aircraft rental and flight
instructor charges. Depending on the
flight school, they may or may not receive
additional benefits for their membership
fee-and they may belong to multiple
clubs so that they can rent and fly out of
different airports.
SCFC offers two levels of membership.
The base ($20/month) yields access to
members-only events, web streaming
of safety seminars, and unlimited use of
the school's office areas for Internet use,
weather briefings, or flight planning, plus
discounts on merchandise and certain
training events. The next level ($40/
month) includes those benefits plus discounts on aircraft and simulator rentals,
access to the school's online flight scheduling system, and ability to act as pilot in
command of a SCFC aircraft following a
checkout. Dyer likens the membership
levels to Netflix.
"We run it as a club," he says. "I think
that's what pilots want to be a part of.
Even pilots who own their own airplane
want to be part of a club. Being a pilot is a
solitary responsibility, and yet it's so much
fun to be alone in that responsibility with
a bunch of people. When you can bring
a bunch of lone wolves together, it's an
exciting energy."

SIMULATOR room
features a G1000 simulator
that helps pilots grasp the
avionics before flying the airplane.
MEMBERS can hone crosswind skills
on a special simulator.
GROUND SCHOOL, safety seminars,
and many other events take place
in the main classroom.
BULLETIN BOARD reminds club members
about the many events they can attend.
FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR office. Any of
SCFS's CFIs can use this office to
work with students.

SCFC FOUNDER DAN DYER
Dan Dyer came to aviation in a roundabout way.
In 2002, employed at a software company, he
realized he no longer liked his job. He cashed out
his stock options and quit. After mulling various
new career paths for a few months, he learned to fly helicopters
and eventually became a CFI. "I'd always done teaching or training at various jobs; I really loved teaching," he says. In aviation,
he'd finally found "a subject worth teaching."
Dyer added a fixed-wing rating while waiting to find a helicopter CFI job. "I had no interest in [fixed-wing aircraft] before," he
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FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG

says. "I thought it was silly you had to keep moving or you'd fall
out of the sky. I started flying them, and they're so easy and so
fast, and you can carry people and go great distances, and there's
so many more jobs."
He worked at other clubs in the San Francisco Bay area before
founding SCFC. Not surprisingly, Dyer struck out on his own so
that he could create the kind of club he'd want to belong to. "The
only reason the place exists is for members to have a great time,"
he says. "That seems like the final metric. If people are having a
great time, you'll be successful, and if not, why do you exist?"

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Flight Training - February 2014

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