Flight training at Take Flight San Diego

Flight instruction: $180/hr

Accelerated finish-up and CFI training sold by the day: $1,440 full day, $720 half day, or $180 an hour where that fits better. The school owns no airplanes; students rent from a San Diego club at Gillespie, Montgomery, Ramona or Carlsbad, which the site says averages $170 to $180 an hour, and the simulator is $45. Those are another operator's rates, so no aircraft rate is recorded here.

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

   Which club do students rent from, and what does that airplane cost today?Missing from their site

   The instruction is priced by the day and the airplane belongs to a separate club.

4. 4

   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.

5. 5

   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.

6. 6

   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 Take Flight's rates. The middle of what 59 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. Take Flight is not in it.

What we checked

Accelerated instrument and CFI courses at Gillespie Field, priced by the day, with the airplane rented from a club rather than the school. Crawled September 5, 2026.