My Private Pilot Training

Hi Tony!

I want to thank you, Jorge, and everyone else who makes the AFIT operation work, especially all the lovely folks I met at Van Nuys. I am fortunate to say that almost everyone I’ve met so far in my short encounter with the generation aviation world has been wonderful and my time has been incredibly well spent – on the ground and in the air.

For my own journey – I am not pursuing a new occupation, but living up a long sought after dream – I wanted to fly since I was a kid, but never had the opportunity to achieve this until recently. I started out with a more traditional schedule; however, the weather challenges compounded those of daily life. With a demanding job and a busy schedule, it has been difficult to find time to fly consistently, and making progress was difficult. 

I encountered the AFIT program almost by chance; I had an unexpected break in my schedule and luckily that coincided with instructor availability. The AFIT program immediately made sense to me. It allowed me to effectively and efficiently use a short block of time on the calendar to fly daily, develop skills, and practice maneuvers. It allowed me to disconnect from everything else for long enough to achieve the skill level required to complete training. Jorge is a veteran instructor, which allowed him to break away from “traditional” scheduling and rigid curriculums to identify which topics can be expedited, while focusing on the skills I had difficulty with, working with me through negative transfer of skills (who knew you can’t drive an airplane like a car?) and tailoring instruction to me.

My experience in traveling elsewhere to train was, albeit challenging on some aspect, good – and allowed me to focus on training. Being able to train at your location allowed me to gain more confidence and skill with different real-life settings.

Lastly, your responsiveness and advice, from almost half a world away, did not go unnoticed and are highly appreciated. I am grateful for the opportunity and training that I received from you.

Thanks again,

Amnon Berger

Westwood, Massachusetts

• Amnon Berger - Westwood, Massachusetts