Fixed price flight training
Every program on this site carries a published price that is set on the day you enrol and does not move at a phase boundary. This page explains what that covers, what it deliberately does not, and the questions worth asking any school that quotes you an hourly rate instead.
What does fixed price flight training actually mean?
That the figure attached to a program on the day you enrol is the figure for that program, with the content stated alongside it, and that nothing is recalculated when you move from one phase to the next. It is a narrower promise than the phrase is usually made to carry, and being precise about the boundary is the point of this page.
The alternative, which is what most of this industry sells, is an hourly rate multiplied by an assumed number of hours. That is an estimate. It has a well-understood failure mode: the assumed hours are close to the regulatory minimum, almost nobody finishes at the minimum, and the difference arrives as a series of small invoices you did not plan for.
A fixed program price removes that particular failure. It does not remove every cost, and a page claiming otherwise would be selling you something nobody delivers. What it removes is uncertainty about the biggest single number, which is the one you would be borrowing against.
The commercial reason this works is worth stating rather than hiding. A school on an hourly model earns more from a slow student. A school on a fixed program price does not, which aligns its interest with your tempo. That alignment is the real product.
What is inside the price and what is outside it?
Inside: the aircraft, the fuel, the instruction, the simulator sessions and the books. Outside: everything charged by somebody who is not us. The second list is short, it is entirely made up of third-party charges, and this site publishes no dollar figure for any of it.
Inside the program price
The airplane and the fuel it burns for the hours the program states. The instructor’s time across those hours, both in the airplane and on the ground for briefings and debriefings. The simulator sessions the program includes, which is two on the Standard and Premium private pilot programs and five on the Comprehensive. And the books and training materials, which are included in every private pilot program.
- Aircraft and fuel for the stated hours
- Instruction, in the air and on the ground
- The simulator sessions the program names
- Books and training materials
Outside it, and why we publish no figures for these
The examiner’s fee for a practical test is set by the examiner and paid by you. The knowledge test fee is set by the testing provider. Your FAA medical examination is paid to an Aviation Medical Examiner. A headset, a tablet, charts and apps are yours to choose and yours to buy.
None of those figures appears anywhere on this site and that is deliberate rather than evasive. We do not set them, we do not bill them, and publishing a number we cannot control would produce a budget that is wrong the moment somebody else changes their price. They are named as costs so you know they exist. They are not priced, because they are not ours.
- The examiner’s fee for a practical test
- Knowledge test fees
- Your FAA medical examination
- Headset, tablet, charts and applications
The honest edge case: hours beyond the program
Every program states a number of hours. Some students need more than the program states, and pretending otherwise would be the same estimate-shaped lie this page is arguing against.
What additional instruction beyond a program costs is not published on this site, and we would rather say so than publish a figure we cannot stand behind. Ask us before you enrol, get the answer in writing, and treat any school that will not give you one the same way. It is a fair question and it has a specific answer.
How do you compare a fixed price against an hourly quote?
By converting both into the same object before you look at either. Four steps, and the fourth is the one that usually changes the answer.
Find the assumed hour count
An hourly quote is meaningless without it. Ask what number of hours the estimate is built on, and whether that number is the regulatory floor or an observed average at that school.
- Ask forThe assumed hours
- Then askFloor, or observed?
- Watch forThe regulatory minimum
Add the instruction separately
Many hourly rates are aircraft-only. Instruction is then billed on top, at a separate rate, for a number of hours that is usually most of the total. Add both before comparing anything.
- Aircraft rateUsually quoted
- Instruction rateOften separate
- Ground timeAsk if billed
Add ground and materials
Ground school hours, books, exam preparation and materials are sometimes inside a quote and sometimes not. Every private pilot program here includes books and materials.
- Ground schoolInside our programs
- BooksIncluded here
- MaterialsIncluded here
Ask what happens past the estimate
This is the question. On an hourly model the answer is that you keep paying the same rates, which means the estimate was never a price. On a fixed program the stated content is the stated content.
- Hourly modelBilling continues
- Fixed programStated content, stated price
- Get itIn writing, before paying
What are the fixed prices?
All of them, on one page, with no figure withheld and no figure offered as a range. The private pilot programs differ by hours and by aircraft rather than by quality, and the Comprehensive is the one most people finish on.
Private Pilot — Standard
Forty hours in the logbook. Thirty-eight are flown and two are simulator; thirty of the forty are dual, and three hours of ground school sit alongside.
- ✓40 hours logged
- ✓2 simulator sessions
- ✓3 hours of ground school
- ✓Books and materials included
Private Pilot — Comprehensive
Sixty hours in the logbook: fifty-five airborne, five in the box, fifty flown dual, plus ten hours of ground school.
- ✓60 hours logged
- ✓5 simulator sessions
- ✓10 hours of ground school
- ✓Books and materials included
Private Pilot — Premium
Forty hours in the logbook, the airborne time all in the Cirrus SR22 Turbo, two of the forty in the simulator, thirty dual, three hours of ground school.
- ✓Glass cockpit from the first hour
- ✓2 simulator sessions
- ✓3 hours of ground school
Airline Career Track
Every phase from the first logged hour to a flight instructor rating, priced once and fixed at the point of enrolment.
- ✓Five phases under a single number
- ✓Financing from $2,500 down
- ✓No repricing at a phase boundary
- ✓Part 61 from start to finish
What can you verify about how this is priced?
The last item on this list is the one that matters here, and it is the easiest of the five to check: open any program page on this site and see whether a number is missing.
Airframe types on the ramp, owned rather than brokered
Cessna 162 Skycatcher, Piper Warrior, Piper Arrow II, Diamond DA20, Cirrus SR22 Turbo and Piper Seminole. The airplanes belong to the operation, so the maintenance calendar is ours and not a lessor’s.
Inspected under 14 CFR 91.409(b)Instructors working here
Each carries a commercial certificate or an ATP beneath, an instructor certificate above it, and a medical in date. You are matched with one of them, and you may ask for another if the fit is wrong.
14 CFR 61.183 · 61.23 · 61.195Training-capable days measured across twelve months at this field
Counted from NOAA ASOS observations for the year ending 1 August 2026, admitting a day only where the ceiling held at 3,000 feet with five statute miles of visibility across four qualifying daylight hours.
NOAA ASOS via the Iowa Environmental MesonetA session in the full-motion simulator
Two of those sessions sit inside the Standard and the Premium private pilot programs and five inside the Comprehensive, and weather never takes one away.
Published, not quoted on requestProgram prices withheld until you enquire
None. Every program figure is printed on the site, nothing is offered as a spread, and the price you sign for is the one you read.
Stated rather than impliedWhat can a fixed price not protect you from?
Three things, and a page that did not list them would be doing the same thing it criticises. A fixed price is a strong protection against one specific failure and it is not a guarantee about the whole undertaking.
It does not protect you from needing more hours than a program contains. Aptitude, tempo and the gap you leave between lessons all move that, and tempo is much the biggest of the three. Fly four times a week and you will land closer to the stated hours than somebody flying fortnightly, reliably and for obvious reasons.
It does not protect you from third-party costs, because nobody can. Examiner fees, knowledge test fees, your medical and your equipment are set by other people. They are named on this site and they are not priced here, which is the honest treatment even though it makes a budget harder to build.
And it does not protect you from stopping. Training already delivered has been delivered, and the refund terms for anything not yet flown are published on the terms page rather than negotiated case by case. Read them before you pay rather than after, which is advice we would give you about any school.
A position. The single most useful thing a flight school can do for a student is publish every price and then not move it, and the second most useful is to say plainly which costs are not its own. Everything else in a pricing conversation is decoration.
What fixed price does not mean here
It does not mean unlimited hours, it does not mean a guaranteed outcome and it does not mean every cost of becoming a pilot sits inside one number. Each program states its hours and its content, and that stated content is what the fixed figure buys. Third-party charges are named on this site and deliberately not priced, because this school neither sets nor bills them.
Airline Pilot Flight School trains under part 61 of 14 CFR, at Van Nuys Airport. It is not an airline, it is not owned by one, and no carrier holds a cadet program, pathway agreement or hiring arrangement with us. We do not guarantee an interview, a job or a salary.
No pass rate, no graduate count and no rating of any kind is published on this site. The operation is new, any such figure would come from a sample too small to mean anything, and inventing one is the easiest lie available in this industry. What is published instead is the syllabus, the price, the hours and the regulation behind each requirement.
Questions about fixed pricing
That the price attached to a program on the day you enrol is the price for the content that program states, and that nothing is recalculated when you move between phases. It is not a promise of unlimited hours, and every program on this site states how many hours it contains.
Yes, inside every program figure, both in the airplane and on the ground for briefings and debriefings. The $179 hourly rate published elsewhere on this site is the airframe and its fuel for enrolled students and it is not an instructor rate. No instructor rate is published anywhere here.
Charges set by other people: the examiner’s fee for a practical test, knowledge test fees, your FAA medical examination and your own equipment such as a headset, a tablet and charts. None of those is priced anywhere on this site because we neither set them nor bill them.
Some students do, and pretending otherwise would be the estimate-shaped problem this page exists to criticise. What additional instruction beyond a program costs is not published here, and we would rather say that than print a figure we cannot stand behind. Ask before you enrol and get the answer in writing.
No. There is no discount for pre-buying hours, no tiered rate card and no negotiated pricing, which means the number you read is the number everybody reads. Block rates are a common way to make a headline hourly figure look lower than it is, and this site does not use one.
Because a range is not a price. Every figure on this site is a single number for a stated program, and if a sentence’s entire point would have been the spread then the sentence gets rewritten. A range gives a borrower nothing to size a loan against.
Take the other quote’s hourly rate, multiply it by the hours that quote assumes, add its instruction rate across the same hours, add ground school and materials, and then ask what happens on the first hour past the estimate. That last question usually changes the comparison more than the arithmetic does.
The program price does not. What changes is the likelihood that you need hours beyond the ones the program contains, because long gaps between lessons cost relearning time. Tempo is the single largest variable in what training actually costs anybody, at any school.
No, and there is no penalty for not paying in full either. Arrangements here start from $2,500 down and the balance is structured around the phases you are flying. The published price is the published price whichever way you pay it.
Training already delivered has been delivered and is not refundable. What happens to anything not yet flown is set out on the terms and refunds page, which is published rather than discussed case by case, and it is worth reading before you pay rather than afterwards.
Where to go next
What replaces the reviews
Our fleetOur instructorsPart 61 training structureFlying days and training tempoOpen any page on this site and look for a missing number
That is the whole test, and it takes about two minutes. Then book an hour, ask what additional instruction would cost, and see whether you get a straight answer. You should ask both of those questions of every school you consider.
Fly the aeroplane once, then decide
The assessment flight is the first hour of the syllabus and a two-way evaluation. You fly it from the left seat with an instructor beside you, they write down what they saw, and you get an honest read on whether the plan is realistic. It is loggable, and it is credited in full against enrolment if you enroll within 24 hours.
What happens on an assessment flight →