Thanks to everyone who could attend our dinner here at Airventure. Michael Maya Charles presented an amazing (and very educational) talk, and the food from Michiel’s Catering was wonderful. The important take-away is that we are growing as an organization, having added 2,000 new members in the last year. We have now graduated several successful SAFE CFI scholars in cooperation with CFI Bootcamp and continue to add value for our members with our webinar series and growing YouTube Resources. (A new website is on the way too)
Our celebration dinner Thursday, July 24th attracted almost 200 members and friends!
Here are the Keynote slides recognizing sponsors and accomplishments in the last couple years:
SAFE is an educational not-for-profit corporation run entirely by volunteers and a democratically elected board of directors. We have two paid operatives; the Executive Director (me) and our virtual bookkeeper.
At Airventure, we recognized two of our long-time members who have contributed greatly to SAFE’s success over our 16-year history.
Dr. Donna Wilt was honored with the 2025 SAFE “Founder’s Award.” Donna served as an early board chairperson and already received the SAFE Service award for creating the SAFE Mentoring Program. Donna has worked tirelessly on the FAA ACS committee since 2016 and was instrumental in returning “minimum controllable airspeed” (MCA) to the FAA CFI ACS. She also just completed a project with Michael Baum to complete and transfer the “Model Codes of Conduct” https://bit.ly/SAFE-AMCC to a permanent archive at Florida Tech.
Dennis Wilt was awarded the 2025 SAFE “Service Award” this year. Dennis has been a consistent volunteer at all our shows since our founding. His friendly manner and encyclopedic knowledge of aviation make him relatable to every curious pilot approaching our booth for resources. Additionally, Dennis and Donna Wilt have stored, transported, and assembled our SAFE display unit in Florida for years!
Register for our next SAFE Webinar on August 10th on conducting Effective Flight Reviews. Fly safely our there and often!
Tell us what *you* think!