Plane Facts: Aviation Training

First students: Lieutenants Frank Lahm and Frederic Humphreys

First trainer aircraft: Signal Corps #1

Reported dual time before solo: 3 hours each

First Civilian Flying School: Wright Brothers Flying School, Montgomery, Alabama

Started business in Montgomery: March 1910

Moved out of Alabama: May 1910

Current site of the school: Maxwell Air Force Base

New school location: Huffman Prairie, Ohio

Number of aviators trained there: About 100

Noteworthy alumni: Hap Arnold, Commander of U.S. Army Air Forces

Other noteworthy alum: Thomas DeWitt Milling, first rated pilot in the Air Forces

Milling's second instructor: Orville Wright

End of Operations: 1916, with the onset of World War I

Current status: Open to the Public as Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historic Park

Number of trained U.S. pilots entering World War I: Approximately 100

Number of flight schools: 3

Number of pilots needed for the war effort: At least 5,000

Model for U.S. training: England's Central Flying School, established 1912

Current status of the school: Still operational, longest active flight school in the world

Pledge U.S. cadets had to make for flight training: They wouldn't marry

Congressionally mandated pilot training program: Civilian Pilot Training Program, 1939

Goal of CPTP: Train 20,000 civilian pilots

Largest single school's actual numbers: 60,000 students trained

Number of CPTP flight schools at its zenith: more than 1,400

Year aeronautics study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began: 1896

Notable accomplishment that year: MIT mechanical engineering student Albert J. Wells built a 30-square-inch wind tunnel

First aeronautical engineering degree program established: 1909, Paris, France

Currently: Still in existence as ISAE-SUPAERO (Higher Institute of Aeronautics and Space)

Year first American aeronautical engineering program was established: 1914

Offered at: University of Michigan

Average cost of getting a Private Pilot Certificate, 1990: $4,270

Average cost of getting a Private Pilot Certificate, 2017: $9,900

Student pilot certificates issued, 1977: 203,510

Student pilot certificates issued, 2016: 36,712

Estimated active flight instructor certificates held, 1977: 44,777

Estimated active flight instructor certificates held, 2016: 104,382

Average age of student pilots, 1986: 32.2 years

Average age of student pilots, 2016: 31.7 years

Estimated active student pilots under the age of 16, 2016: 259

Estimated active student pilots over the age of 80, 2016: 152

Number of colleges (2- and 4-year) in the U.S. with aviation programs, 2017: 300+

Largest collegiate training fleet: University of North Dakota

Number of aircraft: 120+, including airplanes, helicopters, and UAS

Oldest aviation college with flight training: Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Established (as Embry-Riddle School of Aviation): 1926, then reestablished in 1939 in partnership with the University of Miami