AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2011 - 72

Returns are handled every morning. The pilot shop prides itself on processing returns the day they’re received. The task is completed in a small flurry of activity before noon. Not everything has gone as well as the returns process, however. “Of the 50 years, the last two were as tough as we’ve ever had,” Shevers notes. “I never envisioned this.” “It was very traumatic to think that the company could fail,” Sandy Shevers adds. “The lowest point was when we had a double fatality in the flight school,”

Hal Shevers continues. That taught him how tough it is to get flight instructors to follow the rules. “We’re all kind of rogue guys who think we can do it best.” One of his flight school managers’ main jobs today is maintaining enough camaraderie with the instructors to know what they’re doing. And the economy appears to be turning the corner. “We’ve never had business drop off the way it did,” falling 40 percent—and leading to the company’s first-ever layoffs. “We were in business 48 years before we ever had to have a layoff,” Shevers says. “We’re

almost back to where we were three years ago.” Sporty’s managers often eat lunch together in the large, second-floor lunchroom. Look for them at tables near the window, where they can watch flight activity as they talk. Food comes from a large circular vending machine dubbed “The Wheel of Death,” but most of the choices are remarkably edible. Beware of the microwave burritos, however. Communication has always been the key. When Shevers became an instrument flight instructor, most of his customers were World War II-era pilots without instrument ratings. “I listened to what they wanted to buy—what they needed.” Sporty’s first product was a radio receiver that picked up control towers, so pilots could listen and improve their phraseology. At first Shevers, who was working for Cincinnati Milling Machine, sold the $37.95 Realtone radios from the trunk of his car. Another early innovation customers sought was a headset with a boom mic. “It was the Plantronics boom

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A new twist on training?
When the FAA introduced the recreational pilot certificate in 1989, Shevers saw it as an easier way for student pilots to earn a certificate, providing an important milestone and allowing them to more quickly share the joy of flying with family and friends. Sporty’s Academy students— even those enrolled in the University of Cincinnati flight program—routinely earn the recreational pilot ticket first, and quickly add on the private. Now, Shevers is emphasizing the first solo. “Most students walk in and ask for a private [certificate], but what they really want is to solo,” he says. “We make a big deal of the solo around here.” There’s a celebration when the shirttails are cut, and a second one later, when the shirttails—framed by the flight school—are returned to the student. “The way it is today, after you solo, another thousand bucks and you’re a recreational pilot. Then, another $1,000 and you’re a private pilot. The private pilot today is such a long tunnel. This is a building-block approach, just like you don’t start school in the eighth grade.” Shevers wishes the recreational pilot had the same self-certification medical requirements as sport and glider pilots. “That would do more for this industry, and the solo course, than anything else.” —MPC

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2011