Les Arps is long gone, but his firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, is still FlightSafety's law firm. And Price Waterhouse is still our accounting firm.

The first annual report signed by Price Waterhouse was in 1955. It listed total revenues of $177,096.34 and expenses that came to $176,818.93, making a net profit of $277.41. We've been profitable every year since.

While the arrival of the Link Translator helped move us forward, it did not transform us into a wild success. Many pilots were still unconvinced of the benefits of training on it and with us. They seemed content to do some occasional airwork in the company plane or to just not train at all.

That state of affairs began to change rapidly with the arrival of the turbine-powered airplanes. When JetStars, Sabreliners, Gulfstreams and Learjets started coming on the scene in the early 1960s, the whole tenor of business aviation changed. These were not military hand-me-downs, not low-and-slow transports gussied up with overstuffed couches, window curtains and a bar. These were sophisticated, high-altitude, high-speed machines with price tags to match.