Flight training at School of Missionary Aviation Technology

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 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.

4. 4

   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.

5. 5

   What does the flight training programme cost in total, and what is the per-hour rate for time beyond the planned hours?Missing from their site

   SMAT publishes its planned hours course by course and warns that time over them is billed hourly, but the tuition figure itself is behind a calculator widget rather than on a page.

6. 6

   What do public flight lessons cost, as opposed to enrolling in the programme?

   SMAT runs a separate public lesson and rental operation through Flight Circle, which is priced separately from the degree programme.

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 SMAT's rates. The middle of what 13 Michigan 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. SMAT is not in it.

What we checked

A non-profit vocational school training pilots and A&P mechanics for mission aviation, on its own campus at Ionia County Airport. It publishes the HOURS for each course in detail, Private through Commercial including the FAA check ride, and says past students have come within 5% of them, but the money lives inside a JavaScript tuition calculator so no figure is readable. It also runs public flight lessons separately through Flight Circle. AOPA rates it Part 141 and Part 61. Checked August 14, 2026.