Al Ueltschi was a depression-era dairy-farm boy from Franklin County, Kentucky who brought continuing airline-type training to the corporate pilot field. He founded FlightSafety International in the early '50s when airplanes were becoming a corporate tool and all-weather transportation for executives. Ueltschi saw the need among corporate pilots for training similar to that used by his employer, Pan American World Airways. FlightSafety now sets the standard for continuing corporate pilot training.

Al Ueltschi felt the pull of a flying career in the clatter of OX-5 engines passing over Frankfort, Kentucky, in the early '20s. He opened a hamburger stand to earn money for flying lessons, made enough to also buy a Waco 10, and became a real barnstormer. Pan American beckoned when he was in his mid-20s. A couple of years later, he was taken off the line and made the personal pilot of Pan American founder Juan Trippe.