Published rates, sourced · Updated September 16, 2026
What flight training costs at San Diego flight schools
5 schools train out of San Diego. 2 publish a full rate card, shown with the source and the date it was read, next to a PilotBound estimate for your Private pilot certificate. The other 3 are listed with what they do publish.
Across the 2 San Diego schools here with published rates, trainer rentals run $110 to $175 per hour and instruction $60 to $85, and PilotBound's private pilot estimate lands between $13,775 and $19,905, with a median of $16,840.
3 fields: Montgomery-Gibbs Exec Airport (MYF), Brown Field Municipal Airport (SDM) and San Diego International Airport (SAN). Whole state instead? California flight schools
Flight school costs in San Diego, in numbers
Computed from the 2 San Diego schools that publish both an aircraft and an instructor rate, on the same method every card below uses. The 3 listings without a full rate card are left out of every figure.
- $16,840
- Median PilotBound Private estimate across the 2 schools with published rates
- $110 to $175
- Published trainer rental, per hour
- $60 to $85
- Published instruction, per hour
- 2 of 5
- Schools publishing a full rate card (aircraft and instructor)
Lowest published trainer rates in San Diego
- First Flight Corporation · $110/hr Piper PA-28-140, San Diego
- Learn To Fly San Diego · $175/hr Cessna 172N, San Diego
Airports with San Diego flight schools
- Montgomery-Gibbs Exec Airport (MYF)Fly San Diego·Guaranteed Flight Training·Plus One Flyers
- Brown Field Municipal Airport (SDM)First Flight Corporation
- San Diego International Airport (SAN)Learn To Fly San Diego
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 San Diego
First Flight Corporation
Part not statedLowest in CASan Diego, CA·firstflightcorp.net
Published rates
$110/hr aircraft (wet)+$60/hr instructor
Checked September 5, 2026·Source
Rates are per Hobbs hour with fuel included. Instruction is tiered: $60/hr for the Private, Commercial, a rental checkout, a flight review, CFI training, a Mexico checkout and a high-performance endorsement, and $70/hr for tailwheel, Instrument and an IPC. Every Cessna 172 in the fleet is marked VFR ONLY, so the instrument work prices on the Piper 28-180 rather than the cheapest airplane. The 182J, the Cherokee Six and the Aeronca have come off the published rental fleet since August.
PilotBound estimate · Private
$13,775
range $11.8K – $15.7K
~72 hrs on their published rates, plus one-time fees.
Add to my planFirst Flight cost breakdown →Learn To Fly San Diego
Part 61Largest fleetSan Diego, CA·ltfsd.com
Published rates
$175/hr aircraft (wet)+$85/hr instructor
Checked September 16, 2026·Source
Rates are wet. The Cessna 172N and Piper Archer II each also come in a Garmin 430W GPS version at $185/hr. Instruction is $85/hr covering flight, ground, and briefings. No enrollment or membership fees.
PilotBound estimate · Private
$19,905
range $17.1K – $22.7K
~72 hrs on their published rates, plus one-time fees.
Add to my planLTFSD cost breakdown →- Below: schools without a full published rate card. They cannot be priced, so they sit at the end of a cost sort.
Fly San Diego
Part not statedSan Diego, CA·MYF·iflysd.com
Published rates
aircraft rate not published+instructor rate not published
No PilotBound estimate
Fly San Diego does not publish an aircraft rate and an instructor rate
Nothing to total without it.
See what to ask themWhat they do publish →Guaranteed Flight Training
Part not statedSan Diego, CA·MYF
Published rates
aircraft rate not published+instructor rate not published
No PilotBound estimate
Guaranteed does not publish a website, an aircraft rate and an instructor rate
Nothing to total without it.
See what to ask themWhat they do publish →Plus One Flyers
Part not statedSan Diego, CA·MYF·plusoneflyers.org
Published rates
aircraft rate not published+instructor rate not published
No PilotBound estimate
Plus One does not publish an aircraft rate and an instructor rate
Nothing to total without it.
See what to ask themWhat they do publish →
Flight schools in other California cities
- Acampo · 3 schools
- Auburn · 2 schools, all with rates
- Bakersfield · 3 schools, 1 with rates
- Bermuda Dunes · 3 schools, 1 with rates
- Camarillo · 3 schools
- Cameron Park · 3 schools, 2 with rates
- Carlsbad · 4 schools, 3 with rates
- Chino · 5 schools, 1 with rates
- Concord · 3 schools, 1 with rates
- El Cajon · 5 schools, 1 with rates
- Hayward · 3 schools
- Lancaster · 2 schools, all with rates
- Livermore · 4 schools, 2 with rates
- Long Beach · 7 schools, 3 with rates
- Novato · 3 schools
- Palo Alto · 3 schools, 1 with rates
- Ramona · 3 schools
- Riverside · 3 schools, 2 with rates
- Sacramento · 3 schools, 1 with rates
- San Carlos · 3 schools
- San Jose · 5 schools, 1 with rates
- Santa Ana · 4 schools, 2 with rates
- Stockton · 3 schools, 2 with rates
- Torrance · 4 schools, 3 with rates
- Van Nuys · 15 schools, 5 with rates
- Watsonville · 4 schools, 1 with rates
Common questions about San Diego flight schools
- How much does flight school cost in San Diego?
- Across the 2 San Diego flight schools here that publish full rates, trainer rentals run $110 to $175 per hour and instruction $60 to $85 per hour, checked as recently as September 16, 2026. On each school's own published rates, PilotBound estimates a private pilot certificate between $13,775 and $19,905, with a median of $16,840. These are PilotBound estimates built on published rates, not quotes from the schools.
- What is the cheapest flight school in San Diego?
- First Flight Corporation in San Diego publishes the lowest trainer rental of the 2 San Diego schools listed here, $110 per hour for its Piper PA-28-140, a wet rate, so fuel is included in the hourly figure, checked September 5, 2026. The lowest hourly rate is not automatically the lowest total: instructor rates, fuel basis, and the hours you actually fly decide that, which is what the per-school estimates on this page hold constant.
- How current are these San Diego flight school rates?
- Every rate here is the school's own published figure, linked to its source and dated; the newest check in San Diego is September 16, 2026, and each card and school page shows the exact date its rates were read. The directory is re-checked on a monthly cycle, and 3 more schools in San Diego are listed without an estimate because they do not publish a full rate card. A school can correct or remove its listing anytime.
- Which San Diego airports have flight schools?
- 3 fields carry the listed schools: Montgomery-Gibbs Exec Airport (MYF) with 3, and Brown Field Municipal Airport (SDM) with one, and San Diego International Airport (SAN) with one. A school that does not state its field on the pages we read is counted in San Diego without one.
Estimates use the same method as every California school page: PilotBound's own completion-hours model times each school's published rates, plus the one-time fees most quotes leave out. They are ours, not the schools' quotes, and we are not affiliated with the schools. How these estimates work·Disclaimer & removal policy