Flight training at High Sierra Pilots

Every rate is published as "as low as", is DRY (the club states that fuel is not included and that you pay for what you burn), and requires a membership: $95 a month casual, $275 a month core, or $18,000 a year premium. Only the core and premium tiers get discounted flight time, so the published figure is a floor rather than the rate a casual member pays. These are the aircraft based at Carson City that still publish a rate; the club has a second base at Bend, Oregon with five more. Two Carson tails that used to be priced here, a PA-28-180 (N7444W) and a Cessna 172S (N5132R), now answer with a page carrying navigation and nothing else, so they are no longer listed. Their neighbours on the same site returned full pages in the same minute, so that is those two pages and not a block on us.

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

   Your published rates are dry. Roughly what does fuel add per hour on the trainer?

   The published figures leave fuel out, so they understate the real hourly cost until you add it.

4. 4

   Which instructor would I be assigned, and what does that instructor charge per hour?Missing from their site

   The club does not set an instruction rate. Its How It Works page says only that club CFIs are available and that some offer rates as low as $50/hr with most around $75 or more, which is a description of what independent instructors charge, not a club price.

5. 5

   At my membership tier, what does this specific airplane actually cost per hour, and what should I budget for fuel on top?Missing from their site

   Every published figure is an "as low as" number at a discounted tier, and all of them are dry, so two separate adjustments sit between the published rate and your invoice.

6. 6

   Is the monthly membership required for the whole of my training, and does it pause?

   A private certificate takes most students the better part of a year, so the membership is a real line in the total and the tiers differ by $180 a month.

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 High Sierra Pilots's rates. The middle of what 11 Nevada 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. High Sierra Pilots is not in it.

What we checked

A professionally staffed private membership club rather than a flight school, and it says so plainly: it describes itself as deliberately not the traditional nonprofit volunteer club model, and asks whether that is cheaper before answering "No". It publishes a rate for all 21 of its aircraft and no instruction rate at all, which is why there is no estimate here. Two things make the published rates smaller than what you would pay: they are dry, and they are "as low as" figures that assume a paid-up discounted tier. A second base at Bend, Oregon carries five more aircraft that are not listed here.