Kirby Ortega
Teaching Wichita to fly
Today, Kirby Ortega is a Wichita institution. But when his father got a job at Cessna Aircraft in 1972 and prepared to move the family from Topeka, where the young teen was part of an active Aviation Explorers post, Ortega didn’t want to go.
“So, he said, ‘Well, you know, I understand there’s a flying club down there that has brand-new airplanes that you fly for five bucks an hour for the airplane, six dollars for the instructor,’” Ortega said. “So, I said, ‘Dad, when do we pack up and move? It’s time to go.’”
The elder Ortega spent more than two decades at Cessna, and Kirby started at the manufacturer in 1980 in the corporate flight department. He served in a variety of flight operations roles, flying nearly every Cessna airplane, from the 150 and 162 Skycatcher to the Citation X. He retired in 2013 after 30 years at Cessna and began flying for Yingling Aviation as chief pilot for jet management programs, a role he still holds. Ortega now runs an aviation services company with his wife, Teresa, where they provide flight training, aircraft management, and other services. He also serves as a designated pilot examiner.
The common thread throughout his career has been his passion for flight instruction. “It’s not so much the training of actually learning to fly or learning to fly a different airplane as much as the interaction with people,” he said. “Everybody learns differently. Everybody has a different approach to a different reaction, and then it’s never the same.”
Ortega is an FAA Gold Seal Flight Instructor, a two-term NAFI Master Flight Instructor, and an FAA FAAST Team member. He was the 2002 FAA National Flight Instructor of the Year, was inducted into the National Flight Instructor Hall of Fame, and received the Citation Jet Pilot Gold Standard Safety Award.
He recommends instructors participate in continuing education through organizations like the National Association of Flight Instructors and the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators.
“Pick a subject and make yourself an expert in it,” he said. “There’s so many things, you know. There’s navigation, there’s systems, there’s weather, but pick one of those and make yourself an expert in it, and in then two, three years pick another one, so within 10 years you’re an expert of everything, hopefully.”
Related Articles
