Flight training at Ponderosa Aero Club

Club rates. Membership is mandatory: the club's own FAQ answers "Can non-members rent your aircraft?" with "No." Joining is $800, then $200/year for years two to five, plus $115/month in dues less a $30 credit in any month you fly. A 30-day Introductory Membership is $300 and includes one hour with an instructor.

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

   Which instructors have availability, and what does each of them charge?Missing from their site

   Instruction is not priced by the club. Every instructor is independently contracted and publishes their own rate on their own biography, and the published rates range from $60 to $100/hr.

4. 4

   How long is the wait for membership, and does the $800 joining fee buy anything toward flying?

   Only members may fly club aircraft, so the joining fee and dues are a condition of training here rather than an optional discount.

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 Ponderosa's rates. The middle of what 5 Idaho 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. Ponderosa is not in it.

What we checked

THE INSTRUCTOR RATE IS NOT ONE NUMBER, IT IS ONE PER PERSON. Ponderosa's instructors page says outright that "all club instructors are independently contracted", and each biography ends with that instructor's own rate: $60, $65, $72, and $100/hr for backcountry work. There is no club-wide CFI rate to record, which is a different gap from a school that simply declines to publish one. A 501(c)(7) not-for-profit whose aeroplanes are owned by members and leased back, flying from Boise and Nampa.