Instructors
Who is actually going to teach you?
It is the most important question you can ask a flight school, and the one most websites answer last. At Tiger Aviation you train with Niko Stavros. He will know your training, and you will not be passed around a schedule.
Niko Stavros
CFI · CFII · Auburn Professional Flight
- 1,200+ hours of total flight time
- 700+ hours of dual instruction given
- Teaches private, instrument, and commercial students
- 100% student checkride pass rate
- Former professional firefighter
Niko worked as a full-time firefighter while going through flight school. He remembers exactly what every flight hour cost, and it changed how he teaches. He does not believe a student should spend expensive airplane time learning something that could have been properly explained on the ground beforehand. Every flight has a purpose, and you will know what it is before the airplane moves.
Firefighting also shaped his approach to safety. Not dramatically, just practically. The job required staying calm when things were going wrong, communicating clearly, weighing risk with incomplete information, and taking responsibility when someone else's safety was on the line. Those habits carry directly into how he teaches pilots.
While at Auburn, Niko noticed that first responders around the airport had little aviation-specific emergency training. Rather than complain about it, he helped build a program covering aircraft systems, hazards, emergency shutdown procedures, and rescue considerations. More than 800 first responders have received that training. He also pursued a $25,000 Southwest Airlines grant that funded flight simulators Auburn students could use without paying aircraft costs. The pattern matters more than the line items: when he sees a way to make training safer or less financially wasteful, he fixes it. His students get the same treatment. If you are struggling, the answer is not automatically “fly it again.” His job is to find out why, and change the approach.
How Niko teaches
Not everyone learns the same way. Some students need to see a thing, some need it explained, and some need to physically do it a few times before it clicks. Figuring out how you learn is the instructor's responsibility, not yours.
He also insists on understanding over memorization. Not “do this because the examiner wants it,” but “this is what is happening to the airplane, this is why we respond this way, and this is what happens if we don't.” The checkride matters, but eventually your instructor gets out of the airplane. That is when the quality of your training really shows, and that is the pilot he is trying to build.
“I finished my training with Niko and can't recommend him enough. A great, knowledgeable instructor with a 100% pass rate with his students.”
For parents
If you're choosing a flight school for your son or daughter.
Learning to fly is different from most other kinds of education. You are trusting a school with a significant financial investment. More importantly, you are trusting the person sitting beside your son or daughter in the airplane. We understand that, and we do not take it lightly.
You can expect us to know your student personally, to communicate clearly about their progress, and to hand them responsibility as they earn it. You can also expect honesty: if they are not ready for the next step, we will say so, and if weather, fatigue, preparation, or a maintenance concern makes canceling a flight the better decision, we will cancel it. The standard we hold is simple: we train every student into a pilot we would personally feel comfortable flying beside.
If you have questions before your son or daughter starts, we are glad to talk with you directly.
Talk with an instructor.
The best way to evaluate a flight school is a conversation with the person who would be teaching you.