Troy Martin starting Flight school franchise (X-posted on red)

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grattonja

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http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/21303

This link should take you to the article in the Lancaster Sunday news. For anyone on here who doesn't recognize the name, Troy was the student pilot at the controls when Jim Schaeffer had the incursion into the ADIZ that prompted the AOPA Magazine article, as well as significant discussion amongst pilots.

I do not comment on the proposal, as I know Troy Martin. But he is talking national franchise, so I think it is appropriate to post this here, for discussion. His web site does appear to be active although some parts are under construction. Among other things, it appears that there is a statement by Troy Martin about what happened on the fateful day in question. My dial up is too slow to load it at home.

I look forward to the discussion.

Jim G
 
kevin47881 said:
With the large number of flight schools going belly up I wish him well.
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I'm going to go out on a limb here, and I'll probably get some negative rep points but:
I think that the vast majority of belly up flight schools are due to the fault of those belly up flight schools. Sure there are some school out in a few places where external factors have forced their closure (I know a few school owners in Maryland who have dealt with this problem) but the vast majority of flight schools are terribly run, consumer unfriendly, places. How many of us have had terrible experiences with various schools/plane rental places? I went to one FBO that refused to pick me up from the bus stop on my first visit out to the school. Can't spare a 5 min. car trip? You aren't going to see the 10,000 I am about to drop on lessons. Most of us have been double booked for an airplane, had instructors leave, cancel because they were too hung over etc. All of us have been nick led and dimed by a flight school at some point. Some schools take a devil may care attitude to maintenance, which is downright scary. These things make flying frustrating enough on their own, to say nothing of all the things we put up with daily such as weather issues, and the innate danger of flying. The huge number of student pilots who never make PPL is a testament to the fact that learning to fly takes an enormous amount of cash, passion, and intelligence. The poor service at many schools only compounds this. Somebody looking at getting a PPL these days, is looking at dropping 10 grand. That's a lot of money, and for most people the combination of flying's basic difficulties and the lousy schools can be too much. There are a lot more satisfying things one can drop that money on.
Don't think I'm right? Look at one of the most successful nationwide schools, American Flyers, which, by many accounts, is a lousy school which has prices far out of sight of local FBO's. Still talk to any student from American and they will all tell you the same thing, "AF got it done when they said they would, and treated me well."
This isn't to rip on Mom and Pop's; one guy I know who teaches primary and TD far away from me (unfortunately) is one of the best guys I know, and really treats his customers well, in addition to charging the lowest prices around. This guy will never run out of customers, because each one tells another friend, how great flying is, and when a great instructor X is.
So while I'm sure some of the schools went out of business from no fault of their own, to most of those I say "Good Riddance."

NOTE:the above was a response to Kevin's post, not a statement about troy martin's plans.
 
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Isn't this sort of like Willie Sutton, the bank robber, opening up a chain of savings and loans? (Not implying that Mr. Martin is a criminal - just commenting on the irony of it...)
 
Judging from the web site it's safe to say that if ego will run a flight school, Mr. Martin will do very, very well.
 
Somehow all the fancy buildings, marble floors and CEO dressed
like a million $ doesn't give the impression it's for your ordinary
GA student. I guess time will tell.
 
I also just saw the part about the building and employees - he thinks 7-10 people working per floor is a reasonable usage level? Dunno. Maybe its a 7 story building with a tiny little footprint. I did love the comments at the bottom of the article. Can't wait to see what Bruce thinks about this! :D
 
"Students will be obliged to commit to a financing program, much like taking out a college loan."

"
Apply for your Martin Aviation Platinium VISA Card Today."

I got this far on the web site and the above was all I needed to see.
 
gibbons said:
Judging from the web site it's safe to say that if ego will run a flight school, Mr. Martin will do very, very well.
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chip put the words to my thoughts
 
gibbons said:
Judging from the web site it's safe to say that if ego will run a flight school, Mr. Martin will do very, very well.
Click to expand...
Well, he's certainly got a fairly good supply, I would think! I mean, coming from a situation that one would THINK would make a pilot hang his head in shame, this guy's planning more monuments to himself than Saddam!

Go figure.
 
I have to agree with some of his statements about how the ADIZ incursion could have happened (training, currency). The guy's no moron. However, I'm reminded of the old saying about how to make a small fortune in aviation----start with a big fortune.
 
OK, am I allowed to be amused by the pictures, with Mr. Martin standing in the doorway to the jet (Challenger?) with the letters added-on to spell "M A R T I N" ?

I am also certain that Cessna, Cirrus, Diamond, Piper and Columbia are all participants in his empire (how did Beech and Mooney get left out?).


"Martin Licensed Maintenance Facilities are simply the best."

OK.
 
Now that I've read all the responses to Jim's post I absolutely have to go back and bring up the Link.

HR
......... and having read the article, and Gawd Martin's website................ after having completed studies at ERAU, why is he still a student pilot? To have aligned major manufacturers for his operation he must be a better salesman than television's famous Ron Popiel.
 
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Or he just stuck their names on his site like he stuck MARTIN on the side of that challenger.....:eek:
 
RogerT said:
Somehow all the fancy buildings, marble floors and CEO dressed
like a million $ doesn't give the impression it's for your ordinary
GA student. I guess time will tell.
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That's very prescient of you. The ordinary GA student is hi maintenance, lo margin, relative to the jet set.
 
I'm surprised he didn't paint his name on the Wright Flyer.

Wonder how much he charges per hour wet on the Wright.
 
Lawreston said:
Now that I've read all the responses to Jim's post I absolutely have to go back and bring up the Link.

HR
......... and having read the article, and Gawd Martin's website................ after having completed studies at ERAU, why is he still a student pilot? To have aligned major manufacturers for his operation he must be a better salesman than television's famous Ron Popiel.
Click to expand...

An aeronautical engineering degree would just say one knows HOW things fly, not that one CAN fly...?
 
RogerT said:
Somehow all the fancy buildings, marble floors and CEO dressed like a million $ doesn't give the impression it's for your ordinary
GA student.
Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking. Jeans, maybe a collared shirt and tennis shoes vs Donald Trump's business jet headquarters.

First impressions, being the longest lasting, are of utmost importance. If the website is any example, the intimidation factor alone is off scale high for 99%+ of all the pilots and potential pilots I've ever known. (Heck, I'd be intimidated to no end and I've been an insider to the aviation world since I could walk under a Cherokee wing without hitting my head) Most people walking into a totally unfamiliar setting like an airport feel much more welcome being greeted by Chocks the airport pooch than they do by a front desk receptionist in a business suit with a phone asking about your prescheduled appointment.

It takes all types but IMHO it looks like he's aiming at the rare anomaly data points, not the center of the bell curve.


BTW: What is "robotic airplane handling technology" anyway and why would you need it?
 
fgcason said:
BTW: What is "robotic airplane handling technology" anyway and why would you need it?
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my guess: Autopilot.

How's that for muddying up a common term?
 
fgcason said:
BTW: What is "robotic airplane handling technology" anyway and why would you need it?

SkyHog said:
my guess: Autopilot.

How's that for muddying up a common term?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
I was thinking some kind of RC tow dolly for moving planes around on the ground...
 
Wow! At least 3000 new PPLs per year to make this dude's multimillion dollar pitch float with the banks. Its success would be the biggest boom for GA since Cessna & Piper started mass producing airplanes!
 
gkainz said:
I was thinking some kind of RC tow dolly for moving planes around on the ground...
Click to expand...

That was my thought too. But just WHY? That's fine for your garden variety squadron of high turnaround gold plated G-#'s but if you're too good to be leaning down to slap a towbar on a 152 and pull... :rolleyes: At least where I come from, brute forcing planes around on the ramp/hangars/grass and getting dirty is part of the admission fee into aviation.
 
While visiting the site (martinaviationgroup.com), I noticed quite a number of the pages were "under construction". There certainly is a lot of splash on that page!
Curious, I clicked on site map (located below the Wright Flyer). It brought me to something called http://www.hometimemedia.com/. This all begins to look like ambulance chasing which then makes me wonder, "Did Troy stage the whole event as part of some publicity stunt?" He is, afterall, in marketing.
One has to wonder.
 
fgcason said:
That was my thought too. But just WHY? That's fine for your garden variety squadron of high turnaround gold plated G-#'s but if you're too good to be leaning down to slap a towbar on a 152 and pull... :rolleyes: At least where I come from, brute forcing planes around on the ramp/hangars/grass and getting dirty is part of the admission fee into aviation.
Click to expand...
Yeah, Frank. You and me, both. But judging from the website presentation, I don't think they're catering to customers who actually enjoy slogging planes around by hand, fueling by themselves, or changing their own oil...
 
This website just keeps making me more and more angry. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it is the Donald Trump suits, perhaps it is the downright tacky music, and perhaps it is the horrible level of pretension: "Martin certified maintenance is simply the best." Nuts, the guy hasn't done anything other than blundred into some airspace and launched a webpage with a dorky bunch of "under construction links." Maybe it's because my parents always told me to "work hard and keep your mouth shut," that I find this self-aggrandizing site with no actual physical reality connected to it, so horrible. You would think that the dude has built an empire from looking at this site. In reality there is nothing but an empty, played-out buisness plan, with, as far as I can tell, no real investors. I think that the site and the guy's whole attitude stands as an insult to the hardworking folks in aviation (many are even on this board) who work in the real world of airplanes, and are too busy to stand next to borrowed G-V's posing in suits.
I stand behind the comment above that some FBO's have dreadful customer service, but somehow I don't get a lot of confidence that this man is the one to fix it. Maybe I would if there were less than 7 pictures of Martin in cheap, crasp suits on a webpage which doesn't really even work.
 
I agree that it's not really much of a website - every link but one or two is "under construction" . . . sheesh.

The thing is really aggravating. Doesn't he understand that what he did ISN'T a good thing?
 
A marketer would say "any publicity is good publicity".... :rolleyes:
 
I have a couple thoughts on this.

First off with regards to his incursion. Yes I undertstand it is a rule, a stupid one at that, but I don't think anyone should ever be punished for getting lost. It just sends the wrong message to pilots, IMHO.

As to his website, I am kind of dissapointed with the reactions here.

We should be happy that a degreed person in aviation is setting goals and trying to improve our industry.

Is he up and running yet, no, but why jump on him for trying.

If you dream big, and plan big you may not achieve it all, but I think you will come a lot closer than to have no plans and no dream at all.

Think about that.

IMHO, some of you should Cut the guy some slack. Aren't most of us opposed to the stupid Adiz anyway. All our dumb alphabet groups have done since 9/11 is see more and more restrictions put on us as pilots with not much gained back since 9/11.

You would think we would support a guy like this who along with the CFI simply got lost.

There has to have been a time at least once where you looked out the window and said ummmm..... Hmmmm.... I think I'm off track here, let's do a little pilotage and dead reckoning and figure out where I am supposed to be.

And on the flip side, haven't many of us seen the cold shoulder FBO's, and dreamed of a better way, or thought, hey if this place did this, they might get more customers.

As for his marketing and affiliate/franchise goals. Any successful business has to have a plan in place, and try different things. Those of you that have any experience at all setting up or running a business should be familiar with what he is trying to accomplish here, and maybe his mindset. Would not you be trying some of the very same things if his goal was yours? Put yourself in his shoes for a moment.

I support anyone with dreams and goals of furthering General Aviation, and I would think most of you would also feel that way. But I guess it's easier to jump on the critical bandwagon huh.

Which is why I waited to post in this thread after reading it for a couple days.

I wish him luck in his endeavor.

Regards,
Joe
 
Sonar, while I agree with you on the stupidity of the ADIZ, and the current poor quality of most flight schools, and I'd even go so far to say that I encourage people to dream big. All of us here do, or else we would never have made it through the door of a flight school the first time. Its not his plan, big goals, or even the airspace blunder which bothers me.

So I took your comments to heart, and looked at the site again. Still his web page rubs me the wrong way. It looks like he spent more time prancing around business jets in suits and drawing up his dream headquarters than he has put any meaningful thought into his plan; 50 nationwide flight schools in 1 year? Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not buying it.
So I guess something about the entire page's midset just bothers me. I guess it's just the attitude, and the fact I tend to believe that companies should plan 5 million dollar headquarters after they make five million dollars.

Again I do believe that he raises valid points, but they aren't exactly new either. Standardization has been a trend in GA insurance and regulation for a long time now. Nationwide rental places have been tried as well in the seventies, but didn't take off even with the higher volume of those times. Plenty of FBO's do already have good customer service. Somehow I think it's going to take a lot more than his small suggestions for any of his big plans to be realistically realized.


(Note: My favorite FBO is out of a small rural Maryland airport, where one guy does CFI, reception and A&P duties. He's a real good instructor, the planes are in good shape and he's an all around great guy. Prices are also the lowest I've ever seen in aviation. Sometimes the best way to lower costs is to lower overhead. (Can you tell I love small businesses?))
 
One of the links on that MediaMaster page is SEO Optimization, shpwing what you get when search for Try D Martin on Google.

THAT could very well be why the site exists. As a link farm.
 
infotango said:
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and I'll probably get some negative rep points but:
I think that the vast majority of belly up flight schools are due to the fault of those belly up flight schools. Sure there are some school out in a few places where external factors have forced their closure (I know a few school owners in Maryland who have dealt with this problem) but the vast majority of flight schools are terribly run, consumer unfriendly, places. How many of us have had terrible experiences with various schools/plane rental places? I went to one FBO that refused to pick me up from the bus stop on my first visit out to the school. Can't spare a 5 min. car trip? You aren't going to see the 10,000 I am about to drop on lessons. Most of us have been double booked for an airplane, had instructors leave, cancel because they were too hung over etc. All of us have been nick led and dimed by a flight school at some point. Some schools take a devil may care attitude to maintenance, which is downright scary. These things make flying frustrating enough on their own, to say nothing of all the things we put up with daily such as weather issues, and the innate danger of flying. The huge number of student pilots who never make PPL is a testament to the fact that learning to fly takes an enormous amount of cash, passion, and intelligence. The poor service at many schools only compounds this. Somebody looking at getting a PPL these days, is looking at dropping 10 grand. That's a lot of money, and for most people the combination of flying's basic difficulties and the lousy schools can be too much. There are a lot more satisfying things one can drop that money on.
Don't think I'm right? Look at one of the most successful nationwide schools, American Flyers, which, by many accounts, is a lousy school which has prices far out of sight of local FBO's. Still talk to any student from American and they will all tell you the same thing, "AF got it done when they said they would, and treated me well."
This isn't to rip on Mom and Pop's; one guy I know who teaches primary and TD far away from me (unfortunately) is one of the best guys I know, and really treats his customers well, in addition to charging the lowest prices around. This guy will never run out of customers, because each one tells another friend, how great flying is, and when a great instructor X is.
So while I'm sure some of the schools went out of business from no fault of their own, to most of those I say "Good Riddance."

NOTE:the above was a response to Kevin's post, not a statement about troy martin's plans.
Click to expand...

While I cannot disagree with your assessment, the FBO I currently rent from is nothing short of outstanding. Great maintenance, great personalities, great planes (available when scheduled), reasonable rental rates and a great owner. All this being said they are begging for students.
NYC may be different than Nashville when it comes to students wanting to earn their PPL, but this is one FBO who is doing all the right things and barely keeping their head above water.
Are there lousy flight schools that deserve what they get? Absolutely! I can name names in Nashville but am trying to show some restraint :) Are all flight schools in financial trouble due to their own practices? Not in my personal experience.
Just one man's perspective.
 
mikea said:
One of the links on that MediaMaster page is SEO Optimization, shpwing what you get when search for Try D Martin on Google.

THAT could very well be why the site exists. As a link farm.
Click to expand...



I think I gave you the link to the Sunday paper article as well. If he were just using the publicity to push web-sites, I doubt he would be out there in the press making promises about what he expects to deliver with this concept. I think he is serious, although I have not talked to him about it. I have reason to believe that someone on the Boards has talked to him about it. I don't think it is just a ploy to move people to other websites.

Jim G
 
grattonja said:
I think I gave you the link to the Sunday paper article as well. If he were just using the publicity to push web-sites, I doubt he would be out there in the press making promises about what he expects to deliver with this concept. I think he is serious, although I have not talked to him about it. I have reason to believe that someone on the Boards has talked to him about it. I don't think it is just a ploy to move people to other websites.

Jim G
Click to expand...
Ah...but he would do that if he was pushing for people to buy franschises, right? :rolleyes:
 
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