Skyfarer Interview with Randy Groom | Featured in Avemco Wingtips Newsletter
"The best analogy for the Skyfarer system is to think of it like Airbnb for flight training."
Feb 24, 2026
The interview was arranged by our partner Avemco back in November 2025, where we had the pleasure of speaking with Randy Groom, a respected general aviation professional with 40 years of experience.
While word count limited the published version, Randy asked thoughtful questions and continued follow-up discussions over email. Things evolve quickly in a startup, but our core mission remains unchanged: Make flying and aviation more accessible.
"While we all share a common love for the aviation industry, there are many examples of how slow the industry has been to adapt to new technology and fresh approaches to age-old problems.
Sometimes, it takes a young person to identify a problem and then work to find a solution leveraging existing technology and some creative thinking to go with it. Such was the case in my interview with Nick Tsang, founder and CEO of Skyfarer Academy. Nick, along with Matthew Sheble saw an urgent need to bring some fresh thinking into solving some common problems in the Flight Training Industry.
75% of Flight Training Students Drop Out
Why is the dropout rate so high?
A major reason is that students often struggle to find a local, professional flight instructor who meets their specific needs and is available — someone located near certain airports, with the required training expertise and qualifications, and ideally with aircraft access or experience instructing in specific aircraft types. And while financial strain is another reason for the drop-out rate, the inability to maintain a consistent schedule with one’s instructor creates learning retention problems which drives the need for more flight hours and significantly higher costs.
Furthermore, there is a significant challenge for instructors to try to break into the flight training business. Think about the complexity for an individual to create a business, a website, the necessary marketing, and scheduling system before stepping into an airplane with a new student.
The best analogy for the Skyfarer system is to think of it like Airbnb for flight training.
Skyfarer Academy addresses both the student and instructor challenges by creating a single site that provides comprehensive flight training support.
- Instructors can list their profile, specialty and passion on the site.
- Prospective students can review those profiles and select the instructor that is local and appears to best suit their specific training requirements.
- They can also pursue reviews of those instructors to assist them in their final selection.
Skyfarer Academy is much more than just a matchmaking system. It provides full support for messaging, booking, and payment for students and instructors. It can handle the needs of an individual flight instructor but can also provide a forum for a flight school to list all their training programs, services, and instructors in one place for prospective students to review.
While student training is the core of the Skyfarer system, another growth area is flight training for existing pilots. This could encompass training for rusty pilots to brush up on their skills or help a pilot locate a good instructor for their FAA flight review or instrument competency check. It could also serve to locate a model specific expert to support the critical familiarization training for a pilot transitioning up to a new aircraft. All of this can provide critical safety skills and currency while meeting the requirements of the owner’s aircraft insurance policy.
Skyfarer Academy has done a nice job addressing a major issue in the flight training world. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this platform grow and offer even more to the flight training community in the future."
Interview originally published in Avemco Partner WingTips aviation publication.
