Emerge Interactive

I have to admit that becoming a pilot has been a long-time dream of mine. The idea of flight is still magical to me; every time I am on a plane, you'll see me glued to the window. So, when we heard about the opportunity to work with a group of ridiculously experienced and passionate flight instructors to build the next-generation online aviation education application, I was all ears.

After 18 months of developing amazing content and building a cutting-edge online education system, Flying Like the Pros and Emerge Interactive-with our design partners at Hot Studio-are excited to launch www.flyinglikethepros.com. Join 2010 National Flight Instructor of the Year Jeffrey "MossY" Moss and his fellow master flight instructors as they teach tricks and insights that are often only known to the most experienced professional pilots.

To make their vision a reality, we worked closely with Flying Like the Pros to build a custom online education system that would provide general aviation pilots with an immersive learning experience, in which they could learn advanced flying techniques from professional pilots-"The Pros." After an extensive strategy phase evaluating a wide range of Content Management and Learning Management Systems, Drupal was chosen as the foundation for the website because of its customizability, strong user account management capabilities and large developer community. For Ecommerce, open-source Drupal add-on Ubercart was chosen, supporting both online and physical (shipped) products. For content delivery, Flying Like the Pros looked to an area they might avoid when navigating a plane-the Cloud. Emerge developed a comprehensive cloud hosting strategy, utilizing Amazon's S3, EC2 and CloudFront web services, as well as custom integrated Brightcove players to provide a seamless and scalable experience to customers worldwide.

Pilot or not, when you visit Flying Like the Pros, you will gain insight into one of the most fascinating professions-and experience some of what makes flying so magical.