Flight Path
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Fixed-wing and rotor-wing — built for the whole career
Revolutionizing aerial applicator training.
AgPilotEDU is built to carry you through the whole career — the tools new pilots need, the systems knowledge ag flying demands, and the recurrent study that keeps a working professional sharp and the operators they fly for confident.
Built from the sources the industry relies on
NAAA / NAAREF
FAA
OEM Flight Manuals
State Applicator Manuals
From first season to last pass
The training that follows your whole career.
Start with the basics every ag pilot needs. Transition your aircraft. Stay current on the things that actually matter out there. This course is built to grow with you — whether you’re picking up your first job or keeping a working operation running safely season after season.
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Start here
Foundational curriculum
Regulations, application safety, drift, calibration, loading, physiology, and cockpit flows.
View foundational training ›02
Build confidence
Aircraft transition
Systems, limitations, procedures, and emergencies across fixed-wing and rotorcraft.
Explore aircraft tracks ›03
Stay sharp
Recurrent & operator
Scenario reviews, accident trends, seasonal readiness, and the business side of a working operation.
See recurrent training ›
The tools operators want their pilots to have
Safety isn’t something you learn once.
Every lesson is sourced from the manuals your operation already depends on and written for the aircraft and decisions you face out there. Not a ground school refresher — the working knowledge that keeps you flying.
See our training standards ›Built differently
The training courseware new pilots need.
Built by an active ag pilot. Every lesson traces back to the NAAA manual, OEM publications, or FAA guidance — not general aviation material recycled for an ag audience. Includes rate, cost, and breakeven calculators that make the complex side of the business faster and simpler.
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Course tracks
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Lessons
01
Traceable to real sources
Built from regulations, applicator manuals, OEM publications, and established industry safety programs.
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Operator tools built in
Rate, cost, and breakeven calculators make the business side of ag aviation easier to understand and explain to customers.
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Honest about what’s verified
Source status stays visible so you know what’s grounded in cited material and what still needs instructor sign-off.
The science behind it
Built on what the most demanding training programs in the world already know.
Ag aviation has a problem no other flight segment shares: the offseason. Pilots who fly eight months and sit four months are fighting a well-documented physiological reality — proficiency degrades, procedural memory fades, and the first pass of the new season can feel like a different airplane. The research on how to fix that is mature, and it doesn’t come from a flight school brochure.
Modeled after
- ▶ U.S. Military aviation — CRM, SERE, and standardization programs built on spaced repetition and scenario-based assessment
- ▶ Medical residency — ACGME competency milestones, continuous assessment, and longitudinal knowledge retention frameworks
- ▶ FAA recurrent training requirements — the regulatory acknowledgment that proficiency degrades without scheduled return to training
- ▶ NAAA Fly Safe program — repeated, evidence-based safety messaging designed for working ag operators
What the research shows
21,415 learners
Across 13 studies, people who studied with spaced repetition scored a large, consistent margin above people who studied the normal way — an effect size of 0.78, which in plain terms is the gap between a middling student and a top-quarter one. Maye et al., The Clinical Teacher, 2026
Still there at 18 months
Practicing physicians who answered short case questions on a spaced schedule still knew the material a year and a half later; the group that did not had forgotten it. That is the length of an ag off-season, twice over. Academic Medicine, 2025
9 in 10 kept doing it
More than 90% of learners put on a spaced-repetition schedule said they remembered more, stayed engaged, and felt more confident than the group that studied normally. A method people quit does not work; this one they kept. Frontiers in Medicine, 2025
AgPilotEDU applies this with a daily CPE session, phase-based competency progression, and scenario-driven questions — so the offseason doesn’t start over.
Explore the library
Choose your next track.
Every track in the course, in order. Open a track to read it; tap “See what’s inside” to see the lesson list before you decide.
About the creator
Built by someone who’s actually done it.
Benjamin Cardon grew up working a farm. By 14 he was building and flying a radio-controlled ag plane built from his own plans. He began flight training at 15 and earned his private pilot certificate on his seventeenth birthday.
He spent years on the line, then built a career the long way — line man, flight instructor, Part 135 instructor, and Assistant Chief Flight Instructor at Avcenter. He flew charter in light twins, hauled bank checks, and ran air ambulance routes through winter nights between Salt Lake City, Pocatello, Twin Falls, Boise, and Jackson Hole. He joined SkyWest in 2003 and has been there ever since — currently flying the Embraer 175 as a Line Captain and holding a CRJ type rating with approximately 11,000 hours in the CRJ. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Aviation Science and serves as both a Sim Check Airman and a Line Check Airman.
Ag flying was always the goal. He just had to build the financial runway to get there. He is dual rated — fixed wing and rotorcraft — and flies both night ag and daytime ag. His first ag seat was a night ag operation in Yuma, Arizona. He owns and competes a Pitts S-2B and a Starduster II, with aerobatic competition wins to his name.
AgPilotEDU exists because that path was harder than it needed to be. The training, the mentorship, the systems knowledge — none of it was in one place. It is now.
Certificates & Ratings
ATP · Commercial Ag · Dual Rated (AMEL / RH) · CFI · CFII · CRJ Type Rating · Part 135 Instructor · Asst. Chief Flight Instructor · Sim Check Airman · Line Check Airman · Line Captain (SkyWest, EMB-175)
Aircraft Flown
Ag-Cat · Ag-Cat (Garrett turbine) · Piper Pawnee · Turbine Brave · PZL M-18 Dromader · Air Tractor 402 · 502 · 602 · 802 · Bell OH-58 · Bell 206 JetRanger · Bell 206 LongRanger · Owns a Pitts S-2B and a Starduster II
Based
Aberdeen, Idaho (fixed wing ag) · Yuma, Arizona (helicopter ag) · SkyWest operations
Ready when you are
Start where you are.
Never stop improving.
Whether you’re brand new to the work or a seasoned operator looking to sharpen up, the course is here and it’s ready when you are.