Piston Aviation Launches Live On-Line Subscription Ground School to National Audience

By Carmelo Turdo

Piston Aviation, the St. Louis area's fastest-growing flight school, is launching a new live, on-line, subscription ground school that now covers the Private Pilot curriculum. Piston Live, as it is now known, offers a wide range of classes to prepare students for their written exam. Piston Live is also a cost-effective way to gain an understanding of critical aviation concepts for youth preparing for future flight training and for anyone who flies as a passenger in general aviation aircraft.

As the name implies, Piston Live is more than a collection of video courses recycled year after year. Each session is led by a Piston Aviation Certified Flight Instructor, in real time, providing a truly interactive experience for each attendee. The courses are available on a rotating basis, and they can be taken in order as shown in the Student Dashboard or according to the topic of interest. The Live Course Calendar lists current availability for each day, and pre-registration is not required. 

Piston Live also offers supplemental materials to reinforce the interactive classes. A virtual E6B flight computer and handy flight planning calculators are provided in the Calculators and Tools tab on the top menu. Additional course reading materials and FAA references are included in the resource tabs on the right column. Additional teaching aids will be added to the Piston Live website to continually improve the user experience.

Piston Live is designed to provide the Private Pilot student with a pathway to mastering the material necessary to pass the written knowledge exam and to succeed in flight training. After each Live Lesson, there are supplemental slides and videos that expand on the subject matter. Following the Live Lesson and supplemental materials for each series, as shown below for Basic Aerodynamics, there are Test Prep and Quiz modules. Once the quiz is passed with an 85% score, the topic is credited. When the Final Exam is passed, also with 85%, Piston Aviation will recommend the student for the FAA Written Exam administered at an authorized test center.

How much would you expect to pay for all of this material? On-line, video-based ground school courses generally start at around $300, and in-person ground school classes that have fixed schedules cost considerably more. Piston Live provides the best alternative: on-line, flexible scheduling, in-person instruction and supplemental materials for $19.95/month, $109.95/6 months or $199.95/year (two months free) along with a Free 7-Day Trial. Currently, the Private Pilot course is rolling out across the country, with Sport Pilot, Instrument Rating, Commercial Pilot, Multi-Engine Rating and CFI coming in 2025. The platform will scale up as needed to accommodate large numbers of students, with two studios for dedicated Piston Live instructors in development. 

Here we feature Joseph Ord, Co-Owner of Piston Aviation, briefly explaining the Piston Live program:

Visit Piston Live today to get started!