What flight training costs at Alabama flight schools
Every listing shows the school's own published rates with the source and date, next to an honest PilotBound estimate for your Private pilot certificate. Add any school to your plan to map your whole route on their real rates.
Search, filter by city, and sort by cost. Each card marks where it falls among the state's schools on cost. Estimates are ours, not quotes, and we are not affiliated with these schools. See a wrong number? Every card has a correct-this-listing link.
Totals to reach your Private goal at this pace. Estimates use PilotBound's own completion-hours model, examiner-completion data where it exists and FAA minimums where it does not, applied to each school's published rates. They are PilotBound estimates, not the school's quote, and will differ from a school's own figures. How we estimate.
Private estimate range across Alabama
Cofield Aviation
Part not statedLowest in ALGadsden, AL·cofieldaviation.com
PilotBound estimate · Private
$15.8K–$20.9K
~72 hrs on their published rates, plus one-time fees. An estimate, not a quote.
Add to my planSee the full breakdown →PilotBound is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Cofield Aviation. School names are used only to identify the school.
Over The Mountain Aviation
Part 61Calera, AL·otmaviation.com
Published rates
$180/hr aircraft (wet)+$55/hr instructor
Verified July 22, 2026·Source
Over The Mountain publishes the Cessna 172 at $180 per hour wet and the Arrow II at $220 per hour wet, but a separate training page quotes the 172 at $180 plus a fuel surcharge. Confirm which applies before budgeting. Multi-engine training is offered in a Piper Twin Comanche with no published hourly rate, so multi-engine goals are not priced here.
PilotBound estimate · Private
$15.9K–$21.1K
~72 hrs on their published rates, plus one-time fees. An estimate, not a quote.
Add to my planSee the full breakdown →PilotBound is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Over The Mountain Aviation. School names are used only to identify the school.
Red Tail Flight Academy
Part 61Largest fleetTuskegee, AL·flywithredtail.org
Published rates
$185/hr aircraft (wet)+$50/hr instructor
Verified July 30, 2026·Source
Rates are wet. Red Tail also quoted a $150 discovery flight (30 minutes) by email; that price is not published on its site. The school publishes course estimates of its own (about $15,000 Private, $15,500 Instrument, $14,000 Commercial ASEL instruction with time building billed separately, $4,000 single-engine add-on, $3,250 for the group CFI course, about $4,000 CFII) and charges a $60 cancellation/no-show fee. Its Redbird TD2 simulator is $100/hr with an instructor and can count toward 3 hours of Private and 10 hours of Instrument training.
PilotBound estimate · Private
$16K–$21.2K
~72 hrs on their published rates, plus one-time fees. An estimate, not a quote.
Add to my planSee the full breakdown →PilotBound is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Red Tail Flight Academy. School names are used only to identify the school.
How these estimates work
We apply one consistent method to every school: PilotBound's own completion-hours model, examiner-completion data where it exists (like the Private and Commercial) and FAA minimums where no credible public data exists (like the Instrument and CFI), times that school's published aircraft and instructor rates (linked on every card, with the date we verified them), plus the one-time fees most quotes leave out. Holding the hours model identical across schools means the only thing that changes card to card is the school's actual rates.
So the number is PilotBound's estimate, not the school's quote, and it will differ from a school's own cost figures, which are often based on FAA-minimum hours. The schools do not set or endorse it. The result is a range, not a promise.
Want a number tied to your own pace and aircraft choice? Run the estimator or read the full methodology.
These estimates are ours, not the schools' quotes, and we are not affiliated with the schools. A school can correct or remove its listing anytime. Disclaimer & removal policy.