We recently connected with Curt McGahhey and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Curt, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I had worked for two other flight schools in the area. Both of the owners were great pilots, but had less than favorable people skills. While working at the second school in early 2019 I had an encounter with the owner that left me thinking there is a better way to do this. In any endeavour, if you make it “good” for everyone involved it tends to work out successfully. I went home and discussed with my wife what had happened that day. I said to her I can do this better. She said “well, quit talking about it and start your own school.” I instructed for a while in people’s private airplanes and also rented some planes from the local FBO. All the while saving up money to buy a plane. By December of 2019 I had enough to make a down payment on a plane; CAVU Flight School was created and the journey began. I rented an office at the Downtown airport and started instructing. It wasn’t all smooth going. On my very first instructional flight I had a brake failure while taxiing to the runway. Fortunately, the client understood and even laughed a bit. Because of the relationship I had built with the client, they didn’t give up on me despite stumbling right out of the start. I got the plane fixed and quickly built momentum. Later that summer I had enough students to hire my first employee. The CAVU team now has four planes and five instructors including me.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

CAVU Flight School was born out a desire to make the entire flight training experience “good for everyone involved”. Our core principles are safety and providing an extraordinary client experience. We want everyone to be well trained and to go home to their family at the end of the day. When it come to our clients, we put their goals first. This is closely followed by the goals of the instructors, then the goals of the business and finally my goals. When we focus our efforts in this order, everything else falls into line just right. As a retired military pilot with a regular full time flying job, CAVU is not my primary source of income. This allows me to focus on the needs of my clients, instructors and everyone I interact with at the school while still turning a small profit and loving what I get to do everyday. We get a lot of students who are unhappy at their current flight school for a variety of reasons. My first question to them is “what are your aviation goals?” Starting with that question allows me to understand their dreams, and thus help them along the various paths in Commercial and General Aviation. Once I get a feeling of what they want, I recommend the best course of action for them. Sometimes they continue with us and sometimes there are better options. Either way, I develop a relationship with them; 9 ouf 10 come back to complete their training or for additional training later in their journey. Happy employees make happy clients. Thus, I ask my potential flight instructors the same question “what are your aviation goals?” Because of the poor atmosphere for instructors at the other schools I worked at, I want to make sure the goals of my Instructors were a priority. I explain to all new instructors that we are a partnership that will benefit both of us. Every instructor we have had has stayed with us until they are qualified to go to the airlines. I’m grateful to and proud of each of them, they are what has made my business what it is today.
Our desire at CAVU is to creat a flying community that treats each other like family and helps each other to become the best aviator we can be, and then pay it forward to the next person.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When I rented my office and started the “Flight school”, everyone told me you’ll be out of business in a year. There are too many schools on the airfield. This added to my motivation! As I mentioned before, I had seen how the “other” schools were doing it. I knew I could do it differently and better. I laughed off their negativity and went about my work. Sticking to my principles of taking care of clients and employees has allowed me to grow faster than anyone could believe. It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns, but every struggle I have faced has made me stronger and smarter.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

At first I spoke to other business owners about how CAVU was performing, what our goals were and what my strategy was to grow. This seemed like a good idea at first. I later learned that I had divulged too much information to one owner, who later used that information against me. I believed that we could all work together, but quickly learned not everyone is trying to help you. As a first time business owner, I had to unlearn talking in depth about my business model and what we were doing to grow since their priorities were not mine.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.Cavuflightschool.com
• Instagram: Flycavu
• Facebook: CAVU Flight School