For a missionary aviation candidate, the technical training for flight and maintenance skills is sometimes the simplest part of his/her overall required preparation to serve. Many other factors emerge along the journey to serving fulltime in missionary aviation. These factors are equally as vital and, if not addressed properly, can be disqualifying. At SOAR, we are committed to addressing these factors with our comprehensive approach in preparing missionary candidates allowing them to transition directly to their future mission aviation sending agency. Our seamless pathway to missions along with practical maintenance and flight experience is supported by a financial model that avoids debt. Debt can frequently delay or derail those trying to get to the mission field. As we like to say, "It's from SOAR to the Mission Field!".

In addition to our core training program which consists of a 30 month A&P apprenticeship and a minimum of ten hours of flight time per month for our mainstream students, SOAR also looks for ways to help other missionaries and missions take advantage of aviation within their own ministries. This typically is a much shorter term project, like helping someone get current with their Pilot or Mechanic experience to be used in other parts of the world.

Whatever the case may be SOAR is working hard to meet three primary objectives for our missionary candidates:

• Provide low-cost training to keep our missionary candidates from incurring debt while getting the necessary experience and ratings
• Shorten the overall time to get to a mission aviation sending agency by providing experience-based training
• Helping our missionary candidates establish their partnership base while serving at SOAR allowing for a quick transition once their educational and experience requirements are met