AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - September 2021 - 62

Summit. This combination of young leadership-like Cox, Haught,
Caio Campos, who runs the flight school, and Will Gunselman, the
FBO manager-directing the skills of older experts is powerful for
Summit. The entire experience across each of the entities is fresh,
upbeat, and deep in expertise.
The flight school is staffed by a dozen CFIs paid a base salary,
with benefits, to instruct a minimum of 850 hours a year. They're
bonused for each hour above the minimum. CFIs and students congregate
in a large, open work space overlooking the flight line that
hums with energy. Summit has dozens of CFI applicants awaiting
an open position. It's hard to imagine a better place or a more enjoyable
setting for an instructor. Last year the flight school booked over
10,000 instructional hours, some 8,500 of them in the air.
Thanks to scheduling software with a custom curriculum
developed by Chip Gibbons of the Fly Oz airfield network, students
and instructors show up prepared, with a shared understanding of
the student's performance to date and the focus of the next flight.
A large electronic status board, projected conspicuously on a side
wall of the instructor corral compares the flight school's minimum
weather requirements to current conditions and displays a green
circle or red stop sign for each type of flight activity. It reminds
me of the way we managed flight operations in the U.S. Air Force,
only this is more modern and the information displayed is automated
in real time. At a glance students and instructors can see
what events are approved based on a set of conditions pre-established
by Campos and Summit leaders.
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AOPA PILOT / September 2021
The flight school is a main feed to Haught's OZ1 Flying Club.
Based on the type of membership and the number of airplanes they
want to access, members pay $1,500 to $3,000 registration, $150
to $300 a month, and then rent airplanes by the hour. The club's
fleet of seven airplanes includes Cirrus SR22s, Cessna 182s, and
a 180-horsepower Piper Super Cub on 32-inch bushwheels. Club
members can also check out a shotgun to bring along to a remote
strip for hunting or skeet shooting if that's their thing.
OZ1 Flying Club's safety record is good, not perfect. They
mandate checkouts in each airplane and they're serious about proficiency
and responsible behavior. They're such a pleasant group,
laser-focused on the customer experience, so I inquire about how
they handle members who don't adhere to standards. " We transition
them out, " Haught explains matter-of-factly. " It's unpleasant
and thankfully rare, but we can't allow those people to damage
what we're building here. "
Not all members are local; a dozen remote members travel to
Bentonville periodically from as far away as California and New
York. In the open club lounge walled floor to ceiling with windows
overlooking VBT's grass and pavement runways, I run into two
people, one lounging, watching airplanes, another a local business
manager using the capacious lounge as a remote office. Neither are
pilots. They just like airplanes and the excitement around the airport.
OZ1 has 60 " social " members and growing.
Haught's biggest challenge is growth-keeping apace of her
growing membership with airplanes and resources to protect the
NATE PADOVIK
AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - September 2021

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