The case for EARNWINGS, in other people's data

We could tell you ground school is broken and that our app fixes it. Instead, here is the published work — from Boeing's forecasters and from cognitive psychologists who study how people actually learn — and what we built in response to it.

None of the research on this page is ours. Each study or forecast below was conducted and published by the organisation or researchers named, and is reproduced here with a link to the original so you can read it yourself. Their inclusion is not an endorsement of EARNWINGS by their authors, and we have no affiliation with any of them.

South Asia needs 45,000 new pilots by 2044

Boeing's twenty-year outlook projects that South Asia will require 141,000 new aviation personnel by 2044 — 45,000 of them pilots — and identifies South Asia and Southeast Asia as the fastest-growing regions, where staffing demand is expected to more than triple. Globally the forecast is close to 2.4 million new aviation professionals, including roughly 660,000 pilots.

Source: The Boeing Company (2025). Pilot and Technician Outlook 2025–2044. https://www.boeing.com/commercial/market/pilot-technician-outlook

The two techniques students use most are rated the least effective

Reviewing hundreds of studies, the authors rated ten common study techniques. Only two earned a high-utility rating: practice testing and distributed practice, because they help learners of different ages and abilities across a wide range of material. Highlighting, summarising and re-reading — among the most common things students do — were rated low utility.

Source: Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan & Willingham (2013). Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques, Psychological Science in the Public Interest 14(1), 4–58. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26173288/

Being tested on material beats studying it again

Participants who studied prose passages and were then tested on them retained more when measured a week later than those who simply restudied the same passages — and retention improved with more testing opportunities. The effect held even when tests were given without feedback. The authors describe retrieval practice as a powerful mnemonic enhancer, not merely a way of measuring what is already known.

Source: Roediger & Karpicke (2006). Test-Enhanced Learning: Taking Memory Tests Improves Long-Term Retention, Psychological Science. http://psychnet.wustl.edu/memory/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Roediger-Karpicke-2006_PPS.pdf