CAVU Flight Academy expands to Manitowoc

MANITOWOC – CAVU Flight Academy has been helping northeastern Wisconsin residents experience the fun of flight since it opened a school in Green Bay in 1998.

Owner Sherwood Williams hopes a second location, which recently opened at Manitowoc County Airport, will help more people achieve the dream to “fly like a bird.”

“The dream to ‘fly like a bird’ is one dreamt by many — to feel the freedom, experience the view from the sky, shed the traveling constraints of ground-based transportation,” Williams writes on his company’s website.

CAVU stands for “ceiling and visibility unlimited” and instruction from the company can be the catalyst for a career in aviation, not just flying for pleasure. Students must be at least 17 years old to earn a private pilot’s license. The school’s oldest student is 78.

“We focus on safety,” said Williams, who noted that Manitowoc’s flight school instructors — Jim Wheeler and Leon Sigman — were honored last year with the Wright Brothers Award in recognition of 50 years of safety in aviation. “Most of our students have a healthy fear of flying, so we work with our students to overcome that.”

Wheeler and Sigman said lessons can be the kickstart to students eventually serving as pilots in 747 jumbo jets circumnavigating the globe. After all, they said, most all of them got their start behind the controls of single engine planes like the Savage and Cessna 172 at the airport off Menasha Avenue on the city’s north side.

Manitowoc resident Greg Langman started taking flying lessons in June 2013. He earned his private pilot’s license in November with Williams serving as his Federal Aviation Authority checkoff examiner.

“I just like to fly ... I’ll fly in circles around the airport,” said Langman, a salesman at a Two Rivers vehicle parts and accessories firm.

He has his sights set on earning his instrument rating.

“Then I could fly on cloudy, rainy days with a low ceiling ... not just sunny afternoons,” Langman said.

CAVU is associated with Utah Valley University, which offers associate and bachelor degrees in Aviation Science.

It offers an “introductory discovery flight” for $99. For $219, an intermediate discovery flight gives participants a chance to plan their own flight experience including 45 minutes of ground instruction and flight planning, flying the one-hour plan and finishing with review.

Training for a private pilot license costs about $8,000 or more, which includes 20 to 30 hours of ground-based instruction and about 50 hours of flight training including fuel costs.

- Source:  http://www.postcrescent.com