About Us

We have been serving the Ultralight and Sport Pilot community in the St. Petersburg, Florida area for over 14 years. With the new Sport Pilot category and our experience and reputation, you can get the professional training needed for a Sport Pilot License with Seaplane Endorsement!

If you own your Light Sport Aircraft or are interested in buying or building one, we can offer advice. Our Seaplane Base located just minutes away from St Petersburg, Sarasota and Tampa!

We would like to thank James Stowe for this amazing video. View more of his videos Here.

Stop Dreaming... Start Flying!

With the arrival of the Sport Pilot License and Light Sport Aircraft, you too can earn your Sport Pilot License in half the time it takes to get a raditional Private Pilot License! We use a "Keep it Safe, Keep it Simple" approach that makes flight training both easy to learn and enjoyable. If you are planning a career in or just want to fly for fun, every hour you spend flying a Light Sport Aircraft will transfer toward any future FAA pilot certification!

A word about Thomas from a happy student

To whom it may concern,

I would like to take a moment to speak in regards to Mr. Thomas Ruchlewicz, certified flight instructor, #...

As fate may have it, Tom is the man I stumbled across one day who, with a hearty handshake, was able to transform a child's fantasy of flight into a man's reality.

Now, on paper, he may be but a run of the mill flight instructor, but such a file is hardly able to convey his rich, genuine, spontaneous character, and his inextinguishable passion for teaching and flying. To this end, let me offer a pair of vignettes:

First of all, Tom is a "dog person". How is this relevant? Observe a child and dog at play, and you will find that they have much in common; having not mastered the language of words, they are incapable of telling anything but the truth, and most importantly, are incapable of self-deception. Dogs are unconcerned with what tomorrow will bring, only what the moment has to offer, and most importantly who to share it with. To speak this word-less language, as as dogs, children, and Tom do, is to have that subtle gift of communication, the ability to revel in the gift of the present in a manner which transcends syntax.

Unlike with a "real" flight school instructor, who is preoccupied with "professionalism", tight schedules, and the school's bottom line, when Tom takes to the air, only the student's inner child is allowed aboard. Skimming effortlessly over the warm Florida water in a light open cockpit seaplane, student and teacher cast aside all worries of time, of troubles past and future, and only then are truly free to enjoy the pure wonders of flight, of utter freedom, the way our fathers, their fathers, and their fathers before them experienced it.

Thus brings me to my second point: Tom is crazy! By crazy I mean passionate, and by passionate I mean his love for flying, which is only matched by the love he has for teaching, for "his woman", and for "dead fish"! He isn't there flying to take your money and would gladly do it for free if only fuel, sailcloth and engine rebuilds grew on trees.

He isn't one to spout academic gobbledygook, or take you patrolling the friendly skies in the armchair of a flying office. He is 100% human, capable of making mistakes like the best of us, and what he isn't capable of, he's unashamed to say so. Here is one incident in particular: After 2 days flying,Tom sent me to buy a lesson at the local airport flight school at his expense, because he wished for me, the student, to experience flying from wheels, from an airport, and with a different instructor as part of my education- things that he himself was unable to offer. This he did knowing full well that I might not return, had I found that flight school more to my liking. This is the spirit that Tom Ruchlewicz has for sharing the joy of flight.

Be you a future student, industry acquaintance, "dead fish" customer, or just a stranger off the street, I ask of you nothing more than to accept and appreciate Crazy Tom "Rock" Ruchlewicz for the the man he is, and as he says, the "saint that he ain't". No more, no less.

From California with love,
Brian Wang