Flight training at Exec 1 Aviation

Published as "$190 per Hobbs hour wet". A Redbird AATD simulator is $35/hr, and it can log up to 3 hours toward a Private or 20 toward an Instrument. Both figures come from a rate sheet dated October 2023, so confirm them before budgeting.

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

   What does an instructor cost per hour in the airplane, as opposed to in the simulator?Missing from their site

   The only instructor price published is $55/hr, and it appears in a paragraph about the Redbird simulator. It should not be assumed to apply in the air.

4. 4

   Are the October 2023 rate sheets still current?

   Every price Exec 1 publishes sits in PDFs dated October 2023. The $190 Skyhawk rate may have moved since.

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 Exec 1's rates. The middle of what 5 Iowa 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. Exec 1 is not in it.

What we checked

Four IFR-equipped Cessna 172S Skyhawks at one published rate, plus a Redbird AATD. All prices live in PDFs from October 2023 rather than on a web page, which is also why a crawl that only reads HTML finds nothing here. Checked August 6, 2026.