Letter received by Mark R. Richard,
Richard Oil Company Oil and Gas Operators, Kansas
(before beginning training program)

May 16, 1994

Dear Mark,

My wife Terri just got back from Austin last week, where she was able to rent us a Townhouse on the far North end of Austin. It is actually in the Round Rock school district, so out children will go to Round Rock School, which we were trying for. We have decided to rent for up to a year to give us time to know the area and where we might want to buy a home. I appreciate you sending me the information on the listing that you found in Round Rock.

I am certainly looking forward to getting started with my training and it appears at this time that we will be in Austin the 1st week of June. As soon as we get settled I'll give you a call and coordinate when to come in and get started. Since I was down in Austin I have been flying approximately 2-3 hours a week mostly all of which are cross country hours. I have also been working a little on IFR procedures with my local instructor here in Chanute. Those instructional hours probable only total approximately five. I have however read the whole Jeppesen IFR Training Manual and am currently going over it and reading it a second time.

Let me briefly go over the facts for your information on why I chose your flight training school over the other four that I have visited. All of the other training schools without exception use flight instructors that were on an average of 25 years old. Several of these instructors whom I talked with were not as knowledgeable in certain areas as I am and this is a major concern of mine. They did however state that stage checks would be performed by Senior Instructors, however the major part of the instruction would be handled by one of these young instructors. After spending a few days with you and Brett I came away with a very secure feeling that I would receive far better training than any of these other schools. All of the other schools stressed a hurry up and get through with the training type of atmosphere and a lack of attention for quality training. Several of the graduate instructors at Flight Safety in Florida had never flown out of their immediate area of the United States. I feel like after going through your training that I will be equipped to fly anywhere in the United States that I choose to. I was also very impressed with the amount of time that you personally spent with me and all of your follow up work. Many of these other schools I never heard back from and the only way that I could get questions answered, were to initiate the contact myself. I'm sure you have in the past and I encourage you to in the future to handle your other perspective students similar to the way you handled myself. Yourself and Brett Mercer and the city of Austin as a home and training location vastly outclassed the other schools that I visited in trying to choose a quality flight training center.