Welcome to the first episode of FlightStack, where aviation meets innovation. Hosts Taylor Horsager and Jonathan Evans are joined by two outstanding guests to dive deep into the challenges and opportunities reshaping modern flight instruction.
Dr. Chris Johnson is a U.S. Air Force veteran, commercial pilot, and CFI with instrument and multi-engine ratings. With a PhD in Industrial and Systems Engineering, his research focuses on human factors and flight simulation. He’s taught at Embry-Riddle and is the founder of PilotTrainingSystems.com.
Allison Tsay is an aerospace engineer with degrees from Harvard and MIT, and a freshly minted instrument-rated pilot. She has contributed to advanced aerospace projects at Lockheed Martin’s Skunkworks and now leads AI integration initiatives at RapidFlight.
Together, we unpack key issues in flight training—from CFI turnover and simulator recalibration to cultural gaps, fragmented data sources, and weak weather preparedness. We explore why student pilots are often cleared to fly solo in conditions they’ve never trained for, and how tech can bridge that gap.
Topics include:
How to rethink incentive structures for CFIs
The future of AI in the cockpit and SIM training
Centralizing aviation data for better decision-making
Why weather instruction is a blind spot—and how to fix it
What it means to “know” versus just memorize
If you're passionate about training better pilots and integrating smarter systems, this is the episode to start with.
