As we quickly approach the one-year mark of the announcement of the Modernization of Special Airworthiness Certification (MOSAIC) rulemaking package, also known as Sport Pilot 2.0, and the expanded privileges that it gives sport pilots, we thought we’d catch up with a current sport pilot student about his experience under the new rule. Here’s our conversation with Parker Fuller, who is a student pilot at Celestial Kinetics Flight Academy in Waupaca, Wisconsin.
Q: What attracted you to sport pilot training to begin with?
A: I mean the big thing for a lot of people I think is going to be the cost advantage and time advantage. You can get the training done. I hate to say you can get it done in half the time because the minimum requirements are half the time — it doesn’t mean you’re getting it done in half the time. But essentially, it’s going to allow me to get through the training faster than what it would be if I was going the private route, and it fits the mission. Like, if you’re shopping for an airplane, you get something that does 90 percent of your mission, and you can rent for the rest. Well, sport pilot fits majority of what I want to fly for. I’m really just up there for fun anyway. I’ll probably bring my wife with, and we’ll go, you know, look at cool stuff from there. That’s really the goal of my flying. So, I don’t need all the other complex things. I live in a rural area. We have an airport here. It’s not towered, so I don’t necessarily need all the other complexities and endorsements that I could get later down the line with [a] private [certificate].
Q: Did you know that flying for fun was something you could do? That you didn’t have to become an airline pilot or commercial pilot to get your license or certification?
A: Yeah, I guess I knew that it was an option, mostly because, you know, growing up, Oshkosh is 40 minutes from my house. So, it’s kind of right in my backyard. I didn’t realize how special EAA was at the time, kind of took it for granted. I’ve always been interested in aviation and I enjoy watching aviation. So, I definitely knew it was a possibility and I did actually consider it as a career early on, but the cost to get involved was tremendous. You’re taking out all these loans and whatnot. And at the time, pilots weren’t necessarily making good money, especially right out of school. So, it was interesting to me as a hobby, but not necessarily as a career.
Q: How far are you through your sport pilot training right now?
A: I think I have right around like 16 hours. I just got endorsed to solo.
Q: How has the experience been so far, both at your flight school and with the sport pilot certificate itself?
A: I kind of found my flight school on a whim. I was literally just driving out that direction anyway. And I saw, you know, like on your car GPS, it’ll show you like points of interest. And I was like, ‘Oh, what is Celestial Kinetics?’ So, I looked it up and set up a discovery flight with them. And I really enjoyed it because there they’re laid back, just like real people. Like it doesn’t seem like it’s high pressure, like everything is safe and done well, but it’s not stressful. So that part of it’s really nice.”
Q: How has MOSAIC made aviation more accessible to you?
A: MOSAIC has definitely made aviation accessible for me and my friends, too. When I found out about these changes and then went up and I had my discovery flight, I told a couple of buddies about it. … One of my good friends is training at the same school, so we’re like roughly the same length into our training here. So, it’s cool that I went there, found it and was like, this is great because this covers everything that we’ve always wanted to do. We go on a bunch of like off-road trips and travel all over the country, do a bunch of backpacking, hiking, things like that. So now being able to potentially move this into an airplane to where we can fly in somewhere and go see something cool and travel like that just kind of takes us to the next step. And once he also found out this is, you know, half the time and half the expense, he signed up for it too right away.
Q: What, if anything, prevented you from pursuing flight training in the past?
A: In the past it was just the really the hurdle of time and figuring out when I was going to do that. Kind of the stars really aligned with my situation. Now my work schedule changed where I have a lot more time off. So, I have the time to do training and then I can dedicate to training and then financially it’s significantly cheaper now. … The cost to do it is going to be the same per hour essentially as if you’re flying, you know, for private too. It’s just that you’re planning on somewhere between 20 and 30 hours versus, you know, 40 to 70 hours.
Q: What do you hope to do with your pilot certificate?
A: Well, I love what I do for a career now and I don’t foresee changing it, but I do like the option of, you know, I’m kind of set up that I’ll probably be able to retire pretty early. However this goes, I might start off here in sport pilot and then really, really enjoy that and potentially look into that as more of, if I earn some more ratings here, more like a retirement job where it’s still, I’m still flying for fun but able to make some money off of it. If I looked 10-15 years, 20 years in the future, what do I want to do with this? That’s kind of what I’m thinking. Otherwise, for the meantime, primarily just traveling and seeing new places.
Q: What excited you most about sport pilot training?
A: I don’t really know what started it. I can remember back though to like 6th grade, we were in the class and my best friend now of over 20 years, you had to draw what you wanted to do when you grew up. We both drew airplanes. And so the two of us have always been involved in aviation. We kind of split off. He went to college for aviation. And then like the program at his school kind of fizzled out and he really lost interest in it. And then I kind of did as well. I’ve gone up flying with him a few times, but now that I’m going to be able to be a pilot also, that’s really sparked his interest and it’s just like I’m getting all my friends involved in aviation. We’re able to go to all these places and see all these things. The freedom that flying brings you, I think is really exciting.
Q: Do you think you’ll see more sport pilots, or do you think that there’s still a little bit more work that needs to be done as far as adaptation goes?
A: I think it’s slowly growing right now, but I have a feeling it’s going to experience some exponential growth once more people understand what the new sport pilot is. And we in Wisconsin, I think sometimes get sucked into seasons, like we feel like it’s slower right now. But there’s a lot of the country that isn’t slower right now. So, I think it probably has less to do with that and more to do with just exposure. And I think some of these things are just going to take time too, because like we were saying, there is kind of an unjustified stigma against sport pilots. So I think with some time more people getting through training, more people seeing that they’re successfully completing training without incidents or accidents, I think that’s going to help.
Q: Anything else you’d like to add?
A: I guess just to wrap it up, aviation always seemed so far away, and I never thought I could get there once I already graduated high school. I already went through college. Like I already have a job. Like, how am I going to start over and go back? I can’t do this as a career. I can’t give up my income to dedicate time to training, and then, all of a sudden, we have Sport Pilot 2.0 and everything is so much more accessible. Not only the time requirements and the finances, but the availability of airplanes because so many airplanes are now available [to sport pilots]. I have a lot of interest in flying a two-seat airplane with no room for anything else because if you want to just fly around just to fly around, sure. But if you want to go places and do things, you’re going to need a little more space than that or more endurance. And now I have that option, and I can actually get there. So, it’s kind of amazing. Like I feel really grateful to be in the position that I am, that I can finally reach this after wanting to do it for so long.
Learn more about how MOSAIC/Sport Pilot 2.0 can impact your aviation dreams.