STOP DREAMING AND START FLYING!
Flying is freedom – the freedom to go wher you want, when you want. How does flying up to Lake Tahoe to go skiing sound? A weekend in Las Vegas without the hassle of the airlines? Lunch with friends in Palm Springs? A flight to Catalina for a world-famous Buffalo Burger? A romantic dinner in San Diego? Or just jumping in the plane and flying simply for the fun of being aloft? These are just a few of the countless adventures waiting to be discovered for any pilot flying in Southern California.
LEARN TO FLY WITH US
Primary flight training in single-engine aircraft is the first step that most pilots make. If you want to fly for fun or fly for a living, this is wher it all starts. Early in your training we will match you to the instructor best suited to your style of learning. Your instructor will work with you to accommodate your schedule and will give you feedback and encouragement as you progress toward becoming a licensed pilot.
Learning to fly is a process that requires some dedication. Ideally, students should take a lesson twice a week, three times if possible. This keeps your skills sharp and prevents you from havin to relearn things that you’ll end up forgetting if your lessons are spaced too far apart. Put simply – regular lessons keep the costs down as most students will need less time to learn. But if you need to interrupt your training for whatever reason, it will only take a few refresher lessons to regain your proficiency.
FLIGHT TRAINING COST ESTIMATE
While it is difficult to give a concrete estimate (everyone leads at a different pace), a typical student will invest between $10,000 and $13,000 on flight training to earn a private pilot certificate. This is a significant sum for sure, but well worth it for the lifetime of freedom and adventure that awaits. We have had exceptional students finish training in as little as 55 hours, but the vast majority of our students are ready at 70 hours. The Minimum hours of training required by the FAA is 40, but this rule was made more than fifty years ago – flying is a lot more sophisticated now.
Most of our students simply pay for each lesson as they go, making their training easy to budget for. A typical lesson would consist of 1 hour plane rental for $150, 1 hour of flight instruction for $75, and 1/2 hour of ground instruction for $37.50 for a total of $262.50.
As you research different flight schools you will more than likely see a huge range of prices being quoted – many of them well under $10,000. These low cost quotes are nearly always based on the student being ready for the check ride within the minimum hours required. Sounds like a bait and switch, right? Yeah we think so too. We prefer to give you a realistic number based on the average training hours of students in the U.S.
THE FLIGHT TRAINING PROCESS
To be a certificated private pilot, you need to fly with an instructor as well as solo later in your training for a number of hours set by the FAA. There is also a written exam and a practical test with an examiner known as a check ride. Below are the minimum training requirements – it is worth noting that these training minimums were put in place a long time ago, when training aircraft and the airspace they flew in were very simple compared to today. The minimum hours of training before you can take the check ride for your license is 40 hours. The national average time for students to be ready is around 70. Most of our students fall within this range, but a few may take a little longer – everyone learns at a different pace, and we fly in a complex airspace. As you research your flight training options you will encounter numerous acronyms and terms that may not be familiar; please visit the glossary of common flight training terminology to educate yourself on them.
