Celebrating Our CFIs: Three Instructors Take the Next Step

If you have trained at our Shelbyville base in the last couple of years, there is a good chance one of these three names is written in your logbook. Christian Rosa, Ian Condon and Caleb Kahler are moving on from Hawkins Flight Academy to the next seat in their flying careers, and we could not be prouder of them.

Christian is flying corporate out of Knoxville, Tennessee, in the Embraer Phenom and the Cirrus Vision Jet. Ian is heading to Contour Airlines. Caleb is heading to Piedmont Airlines. Each of them taught in the same RV-12 cockpits you fly today, on the same ramp at Shelbyville Municipal Airport (KSYI), and each of them gave your training their full attention.

This is the part of aviation that never shows up in a syllabus. The people who teach you to fly eventually climb into bigger airplanes and go. As we stand on the ramp and remember how we were there for their early chapters, their stories inspire us to continue with our own journeys and achieve even greater heights.

Christian Rosa: from the RV-12 panel to a corporate jet cockpit

Christian joined us as a Certified Flight Instructor (CFI) and spent his time at Hawkins teaching in our Garmin G3X-equipped RV-12 fleet. He is now flying corporate in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the Embraer Phenom and the Cirrus Vision Jet, two light jets whose passengers sit a few feet behind the pilot and expect calm, precise flying.

If you flew with Christian, you saw that calm before you ever heard the word “jet”. The same steady briefing he gave you before a lesson is the briefing his passengers now hear before every trip. Congratulations, Christian. Knoxville is not far, and the Hawkins family expects to see you on the ramp again.

Ian Condon: a triple-rated instructor heads to Contour Airlines

Ian was one of our most broadly rated instructors. He held his CFII (instrument instructor), MEI (multi-engine instructor) and IGI (instrument ground instructor), which meant he taught everything from a first instrument approach in the Redbird simulator to multi-engine work in the twin. If you earned your instrument rating with Ian, you know how patient he was with your scan.

He is heading to Contour Airlines, a regional airline headquartered at Smyrna Airport in Smyrna, Tennessee, about an hour up the road from Shelbyville. A regional jet, a crew and a schedule are the natural next chapter for someone who spent his teaching years inside the clouds with students. Congratulations, Ian. Middle Tennessee gets to keep you close.

Caleb Kahler: from Shelbyville student flights to Piedmont Airlines

Caleb taught as a CFI at Shelbyville and spent his days doing the work that makes a flight school run: preflight briefings, pattern work, cross-countries and the honest debriefs that turn a shaky landing into a confident one. If you were one of his students, you know he never rushed that debrief.

He is heading to Piedmont Airlines, a wholly owned subsidiary of American Airlines Group that flies regional routes as American Eagle. Caleb earned that seat one student flight at a time, in the same RV-12 fleet where you are building your own habits right now. Congratulations, Caleb. Enjoy the view from the flight deck.

Why a flight school celebrates when its instructors leave

Aviation has always worked this way. Every airline captain and every corporate pilot was once the person in the right seat of a small trainer, watching a student try a landing for the third time. Teaching is how the craft gets handed down, and the instructors who take it seriously are the ones who carry it furthest.

You felt that in every lesson with Christian, Ian and Caleb. They were concerned with your progress, not with the clock, and the habits they built in you are the same habits that got them hired. Their departure is a milestone for you, too: your instructor’s success is proof the path you are on leads somewhere real.

Fly safe, gentlemen, and come visit

Christian, Ian and Caleb walked onto our ramp as instructors and are leaving as a corporate jet pilot and two airline pilots. From every student you taught and everyone at Hawkins Flight Academy, thank you. You made our Shelbyville base a better place to learn to fly.

Congratulations to all three of you. The hangar door is always open, so come visit when you are back in town, and bring the stories. We want to hear what the view looks like from up there.