Flight training at Advantage Aviation

Aircraft: $155/hr

Advantage publishes rates on individual aircraft pages rather than one rate card, fourteen of them, ranging from $155/hr to about $250/hr. The $155 recorded here is the cheapest published figure. The model is not stated reliably against every tail, so the individual airplanes are not listed rather than guessed at, and the fuel basis is not stated anywhere.

1. 1

   What do you charge per hour for flight instruction, and is ground instruction billed at the same rate?Missing from their site

   This is the number that is missing from the site. Ground is often billed separately and at a different rate.

2. 2

   Does the instructor rate change for the Instrument, Commercial, or CFI, or is it flat across everything?Missing from their site

   Plenty of schools charge more for advanced instruction. A flat rate quoted for the Private can climb later.

3. 3

   Do the published aircraft rates include fuel, or is fuel billed separately?

   The site does not say, and it is the difference between two rates that look identical and are not.

4. 4

   What does instruction cost per hour?Missing from their site

   Fourteen aircraft carry a published rate and instruction carries none.

5. 5

   Which airplane is the $155 one, and is it suitable for the Private?Missing from their site

   The rates are spread across individual pages, so the cheapest is hard to identify without asking.

6. 6

   Is membership required to rent, and what does it cost?

   Palo Alto operations are frequently club-based, and none of that is published here.

7. 7

   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.

8. 8

   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.

9. 9

   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 Advantage Aviation's rates. The middle of what 60 California 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. Advantage Aviation is not in it.

What we checked

Fourteen aircraft with rates spread across individual tail-number pages rather than a rate card, ranging from about $155 to $250 an hour. The crawler reached them by following the fleet index, which is the pattern that hid Rochester and Barnes. No instruction rate anywhere. Checked August 6, 2026.