Flight Instructors

Hawaii Flight Training has only the most dedicated and professional flight instructors, committed to make your flight training the most positive experience you have ever had in a learning environment.

One of the most overlooked factors in flight training is that of the instructor, when it should be in fact the first thing that you as the student should consider What you must understand as a potential student is the most important question of all. "Will I complete my course with the instructor that I started with?"

In many cases the answer is no. Many students have had as many as four, five and upwards of ten different instructors during the students course.

Exaggeration? No. Rare? Yes. But it does happen and the main reason being that most instructors have gone through what we call a "Part 141" college, where they acquire their degree, their ratings, instruct until they have the required hours and move on to the next job as quickly as possible to get to those high paying pilot positions.

They have no real life experience and it is considered their first commercial venture as a pilot, get a bad instructor (not rare) and you will receive bad training.

In cases like these, the student does not feel that they are the most important person and they are there to enhance the instructors career, not the other way around as it should be, and that is for the instructor to turn out the most competent, proficient and happy private pilot as possible. And to that end that is where Hawaii Flight Training excels.

Prior to introducing the instructors, one last thing as explained to me by a very nice chap at the Flight Standards District Office (FSDO) here in Honolulu. We are professional flight instructors, the gatekeepers to aviation, that's what we do, and probably the first people you will meet in your quest for a private pilots license, we are not going to the airlines, we are not looking to use you as a stepping stone for a better job.

We are there for you, we hold the highest standards for ourselves and for you, and we expect you as students through your training and exposure to us to adopt the same high standard for yourselves and carry that standard through your entire aviation hobby long after you leave Hawaii.

Jon Pickering

The owner of Hawaii Flight Training, Jon Pickering has been flying in Hawaii since 1998. In that time he has come to know the Hawaiian Island chain intimately. Training through part 61 and taking the time to learn the real craft of flying a plane from flying as a private pilot, through to the commercial and then working as a commercial pilot, flying demanding aerial survey work to very high standards and tolerances.

Only after that experience, and armed with the knowledge and those techniques learned through this type of flying did Jon aspire and become an FAA authorized flight instructor. Jon still works with companies in and out of state performing such services, and those techniques have made him an outstanding pilot and instructor, well above and beyond the standards of most commercial pilots. Jon has incorporated these techniques into the more flexible part 61 private pilot course.

Buster Frysinger

Jon frequently works and trains with another Big Island pilot, Buster Frysinger, who has been a professional pilot since his early twenties and has had extensive experience flying here in Hawaii and on the US mainland flying IFR night freight Buster holds the same high standards and with over seven thousand hours flying time still enjoys to instruct and pass on his knowledge and skills. His wife Kuzuko is also a helicopter pilot and instructor.