Flight training at Aerodyne Flight Center

Flight instruction: $89/hr

Aerodyne publishes instruction at $89/hr or $700 per day, and simulator time at $109/hr with an Aerodyne instructor's $89 fee on top, or $149/hr when not flown with an Aerodyne instructor. It publishes no hourly rate for any airplane: the training-rentals page shows a Cessna 310Q without a figure.

1. 1

   What is the hourly rate on your cheapest trainer, and which airplane is that?Missing from their site

   This is the number that is missing from the site, and it is the largest line on your bill.

2. 2

   Is that rate wet or dry, meaning does it include fuel?Missing from their site

   A dry rate and a wet rate are not comparable. Dry rates can run $40 to $60 an hour lower for the same airplane.

3. 3

   What do the training aircraft rent for per hour, and is that wet or dry?Missing from their site

   Aerodyne prices its instructors and its simulator and none of its airplanes, so the largest line in your budget is the one number not on the site.

4. 4

   Is the $700 day rate for instruction a better deal than hourly for your schedule?

   A published day rate is unusual and suits accelerated training, but it only pays off above roughly eight hours of instruction in a day.

5. 5

   Do you offer block rates or prepay discounts, and what is the refund policy if I stop partway?

   Block discounts are common and rarely published. The refund terms matter more than the discount.

6. 6

   What do you charge for the written test, the checkride, and the examiner's fee?

   The DPE fee alone runs $800 to $1,200 in most of the country and is almost never in a quoted hourly rate.

7. 7

   How many trainers and how many full-time instructors do you have right now?

   Availability decides your pace, and pace decides your total more than the hourly rate does.

What to compare their answer against

Not Aerodyne's rates. The middle of what 10 Arizona schools charge, to hold your phone quote against.

From the schools here that publish full rate cards, the same sample behind the Flight Training Cost Report. Aerodyne is not in it.

What we checked

This is the reverse of the usual gap: the instructor rate is published plainly and the aircraft rate is not. Aerodyne trains in Cirrus aircraft and advertises multi-engine training in a Cessna 310, and prices neither. The $700 per day instruction figure is worth knowing about if you are training full time.