Most flight school owners meet an FAA inspector and feel their stomach drop. You wonder what they will find. You wonder if your records will hold up. You wonder what they are really thinking.
What if you could ask one of those inspectors before he ever walked through your door?
That is the next episode of The Aviation Business Podcast. Host Dan Gill sits down with Scottie Burge, an Operations Air Safety Inspector with the FAA, for an honest look at what inspectors actually check and how you can be ready.
A guest who has seen it from every seat
Scottie has not always worn the inspector’s hat. He spent close to 25 years as an officer in the Royal Air Force. After that he moved into US flight training and went on to run flight operations as a chief pilot. In 2021 he joined the FAA, where he now works as an Operations Air Safety Inspector.
That path is rare. Few people have trained pilots, run a flight line, and inspected schools for the agency. Scottie has done all three. He knows the pressure you carry as an owner, and he knows what an inspection is really looking for.
He also brings deep general aviation and helicopter experience, with a strong background in emergency and autorotation training.
What you will take away
In this episode you will hear:
- What an inspector notices first when walking into a flight school
- The most common gaps that trip schools up, and how to close them
- How to build a safety culture that holds as you add planes, instructors, and students
- The one change you could make this month that an inspector would notice
Every answer comes back to the same question. What does this mean for your flight school.
Join us live
You do not have to wait for the edit. Watch the conversation as it happens and see it unfold in real time.
- When: Monday, June 22, 2026, 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm CDT
- Where: Join us live
Bring your questions about inspections, audits, and safety culture. This is your chance to hear what an inspector thinks, in plain language, with no fear factor.