Path 2 Flight
In 2015 I started a company to fix a problem everyone in aviation agreed on and nobody seemed to be fixing: learning to fly was too expensive, too slow, and too hard to find your way into.
I grew up in a family where airplanes were built in the garage. I knew the door into aviation existed. Most people had never been shown where it was.
The problem everyone agreed on
Plenty of people dream about flying. Very few find out where to start. Flight training costs a lot, takes a long time, and is hard to even locate if nobody in your life has done it.
Meanwhile general aviation was shrinking, instructors were scarce, fewer young people were learning to fly, and the industry could see a pilot shortage coming. Everyone agreed on the problem. The door stayed just as hard to find.
The idea
Remove the three biggest barriers to flight: access, time, and cost.
First, access. Partner with local flight schools and put their flights in one place, so anyone could find a first flight near them and book it in a few clicks.
Then, time and cost. Bring in virtual reality, so people could start learning to fly from home before they ever paid for an hour in the air.
Not to turn everyone into a pilot overnight. To make aviation feel like a place you're invited.
What we built
In 2018 we launched path2flight.com, a marketplace for flight experiences across the country: airplane rides, glider flights, helicopter tours, and discovery flights.
For the curious, it turned "someday" into a booking. For flight schools, it brought new customers and simple tools to welcome them.
We had momentum, partners, and early traction.
Then 2020 happened
Early-stage funding froze. Aviation nearly stopped. It wasn't the idea that failed. It was the moment.
I let the company go. Not the mission, just the company.
Stephen Dubner found the failing interesting enough to put it in Freakonomics, in a three-part series on grit, quitting, and knowing when to walk away. I'm the one who knows a lot about the walking-away part.
