Parrish Aviation earns new certification

Maybe you were inspired after the second season of Nathan Fielder’s HBO series The Rehearsal or have seen the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds take flight. Whatever your reason, now you can learn to fly in a more structured manner with the recent 141 certification at a Redbird flight school.

The Parrish Aviation Flight Academy, founded in 2020, came to fruition for two reasons: a brother in need of a job and the desire for a flight school that had a stronger bond with their students.

To tackle that desire, Jack Parrish made it a reality.

Flying has been in Parrish’s life since he was a child. Growing up taking to the skies before the sunrise with the former commander of the Thunderbirds, his grandfather Lt. Roger Parrish, led him to attend a flight school.

As the founder and president of Parrish Aviation, he has been pursuing the 141 certification since the start of the school.

While the academy operated as a FAA 61 school for nearly half a decade, the FAA 141 provides an advantage. Typically, 61 certified programs see students more sparingly, say they’re filming an HBO series or want to come in and fly on the weekends, whereas with the 141 is closer to a college degree with a set timeline of when you will graduate.

Additionally, with a 141 certification, new collaboration opportunities have opened up to the school and their students. Parrish now has a partnership with Purdue Global, where The School of Aviation includes online bachelor’s degrees in professional flight or aviation management.

Parrish Aviation was able to obtain the 141 certification not from the typical path, but from buying out another school.

“Their school was listed on barnstormers.com, it’s just on this kind of random really old website where people sell airplanes,” Parrish says with a laugh.

An Oregon school was listed for sale, and with it a FAA 141 certification. From there, Parrish flew out to Oregon to become the chief instructor of the institution, have his name added to the certificate and then he was able to transfer the school certificate to Parrish. He says they are still managed by the Portland Flight Standard District Office, even though he is back in the North Texas region.

Up and running for half a decade, the academy had struggled to receive their 141 certification, something that had been pined for since opening day. Years of waiting on the list in Texas continued to drag on.

“There’s not a lot of communication, honestly, you submit an application and then you basically go into a national queue,” he says.

This lengthy process was a switch during the pandemic, changing to the national oversight of FAA certifications rather than a local one.

Travis Harvey, Part 61 chief instructor, says that the new certification provides a structured schedule and program that can be beneficial for both students and the school, adding a new component to the culture he has experienced there.

Harvey attended Parrish Aviation as a student in May 2023 and has stayed at the school throughout his career. His decision for Parrish came back to the community Jack strives to build with the “mom and pop shop feel.”

“The culture of the people in the building. The culture of what Parrish’s whole point was is it would be your name,” Harvey says. “You’re someone that we know rather than just a number we’re cranking through.”

Since the goal has finally been reached, Parrish says he continues to raise the bar when it comes to the Parrish Aviation training.

“We’re growing in number of students, and so we’re growing the number of planes as well as we see fit,” Harvey says.

This article is an update to “Redbird’s very own flight school: Parrish Aviation Flight Academy” published in May 2024.