Greg,
Sounds like they are trying to do something in your area and that is good.
We have several colleges in the area but I do not know if they offer a
ground school or not. If they do they sure don't advertise it! Local
newspapers could be very effective IMO, especially in decent size cities and
towns. You looked at a community college handout and found the ground
school, I don't think alot of people would even think a college did anything
like that. So that may be the last place alot of folks would see. And alot
of folks cringe at the thought of being in a formal classroom again..me
included! HAHA But alot of folks read the paper, or at least get a paper,
and the best ad is the one that gets the attention of someone who is not
looking to be a pilot. An ad is supposed to make you feel like you want to
try a product.
A decent ad with a good intro price, and someone who has had flying GA
in the back of their mind for years, due to paying for a house, sending kids
to school and all those other things in life that comes up with may just get
the incentive to go do it! And the great thing about an ad is it makes
someone think about it that never has before.
Our problem is aviation always waits for people to come to it, instead
of going to the people. Oh and sorry for the mis-spelled words /typos, my 19
month old had knocked my keyboard in the floor and I had keys all over the
place ! got them all back in but some were not functioning all that well
Dang shift key is still only working 50% it seems.

Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech

"N93332" wrote in message
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"W P Dixon" wrote in message
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Jay,
I think you make a good point. My bigest peeve is you never see a
flight school put an ad in the local newspaper, or in any type of media
that is not just see by the people that are already pilots! I have never
seen it anway. Every other type of biz advertises to gain customers. GA
does not.
NONE of these reasons are valid, but we in the GA
world have done a terrible job of spreading the word to the non-flying
public.

Would an ad in the local newspaper draw much attention for a flight
school? When I got interested in flying (finally), I looked through the
'community education' flyer that came in the mail and found a class for
ground school available. If there are local community colleges around the
area that offer any type of GA training, that'd be a good start and they
do 'some' advertising.

One thing that gets word out about GA in this area (MN/IA) are the flight
breakfasts somewhere just about every Sunday during the summer. The local
communities sponsor and advertise these and have good turnouts by the
locals. I'm planning on Humboldt's fly-in this Sunday and Mankato the next
Sunday, both which have around 100 planes fly in and another 500-1000
locals show up. Plane rides are offered at these to get local people
interested in GA.

-Greg B.