Distance Education in the Business Aviation Industry: Issues and Opportunities

The purpose of this research is to understand the expectations and behaviors of business aviation pilots toward online learning. The authors believe that the company able to offer an integrated, individualized and useful online training experience will gain a significant competitive advantage. To that end, the authors have researched and synthesized studies that are currently available and relate to this important future product. In addition, an exploratory survey of business aviation pilots and interviews with key aviation industry players are used to determine current attitudes and expectations toward online learning. The scope of this paper will be limited to exploring the niche market of business aviation pilots using the aviation training company CAE SimuFlite and their new Simfinity technology. However, the authors consider the concepts discussed to be applicable to all business aviation pilots.