PilotBound

Published rates, sourced · Updated September 13, 2026

What flight training costs at Reno flight schools

4 schools train out of Reno. 2 publish a full rate card, shown with the source and the date it was read, next to a PilotBound estimate for your Private pilot certificate. The other 2 are listed with what they do publish.

Across the 2 Reno schools here with published rates, trainer rentals run $169 to $185 per hour and instruction $70 to $90, and PilotBound's private pilot estimate lands between $18,603 and $20,335, with a median of $19,469.

One field: Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO). Whole state instead? Nevada flight schools

Flight school costs in Reno, in numbers

Computed from the 2 Reno schools that publish both an aircraft and an instructor rate, on the same method every card below uses. The 2 listings without a full rate card are left out of every figure.

$19,469
Median PilotBound Private estimate across the 2 schools with published rates
$169 to $185
Published trainer rental, per hour
$70 to $90
Published instruction, per hour
2 of 4
Schools publishing a full rate card (aircraft and instructor)

Lowest published trainer rates in Reno

Part 141 flight schools in Reno

Airports with Reno flight schools

Estimate cost toflying
Showing 4 of 4 schools

Totals to reach your Private goal at this pace. Estimates use PilotBound's own completion-hours model, examiner-completion data where it exists and FAA minimums where it does not, applied to each school's published rates. They are PilotBound estimates, not the school's quote, and will differ from a school's own figures. How we estimate.

Private estimate range across Reno

lowest $16Khighest $23.2K

  • Biggest Little Flight School

    Part not stated
    Lowest in NVLargest fleet

    Reno, NV·biggestlittleflightschool.com

    Published rates

    $169/hr aircraft (wet)+$70/hr instructor

    Checked September 10, 2026·Source

    Published rates are wet. Instruction is posted per instructor: $70/hr primary and $80/hr advanced, the same two figures for every instructor on staff, with the chief pilot at a flat $80/hr. The site does not define where primary ends and advanced begins, so this estimate applies the advanced rate to everything past the Private. The advanced/complex line uses the Piper Arrow, the one retractable; the school also badges one $175 Cessna 172 as TAA-qualified, which can serve the commercial's ten complex-or-TAA hours for less. A PFC12 AATD simulator is published at $85/hr and is not part of this estimate. Multi-engine training is referred to Sierra Flight Training, a separate business at the same airport, so no multi-engine estimate is offered here even though the two Twin Comanches carry published rates.

    PilotBound estimate · Private

    $18,603

    range $16K – $21.2K

    ~72 hrs on their published rates, plus one-time fees.

    Add to my planBiggest Little cost breakdown →

  • Great Basin Aviation

    Part not stated

    Reno, NV·greatbasinaviation.com

    Published rates

    $185/hr aircraft (fuel basis not stated)+$80/hr instructor

    Checked September 10, 2026·Source

    Rate schedule effective Jan 1, 2026; advanced flight instruction billed at $90/hr, ground $45-$50/hr. Fuel basis not stated on the schedule.

    PilotBound estimate · Private

    $20,335

    range $17.5K – $23.2K

    ~72 hrs on their published rates, plus one-time fees.

    Add to my planGreat Basin Aviation cost breakdown →
  • Below: schools without a full published rate card. They cannot be priced, so they sit at the end of a cost sort.

  • FlyReno

    Part 61 & 141

    Reno, NV·RNO·flyreno.com

    Published rates

    $400/hr aircraft+instructor rate not published

    Checked September 13, 2026·Source·2 aircraft published

    A multi-engine-only Part 141 school: the Twin Comanche is $400/hr wet and the 310 $500/hr wet, multi-engine dual is $590/hr wet with instruction included, advanced ground $90/hr and simulator instruction $60/hr, plus a fixed-price multi add-on at $8,900 for up to 15 hours. No single-engine airplane and no separate instructor rate.

    No PilotBound estimate

    FlyReno does not publish an instructor rate

    Nothing to total without it.

    See what to ask themWhat they do publish →

  • NV Flight

    Part not stated

    Reno, NV·RNO·nvflight.com

    Published rates

    aircraft rate not published+instructor rate not published

    No PilotBound estimate

    NV Flight does not publish an aircraft rate and an instructor rate

    Nothing to total without it.

    See what to ask themWhat they do publish →

Flight schools in other Nevada cities

All Nevada flight schoolsFlight school costs by state

Common questions about Reno flight schools

How much does flight school cost in Reno?
Across the 2 Reno flight schools here that publish full rates, trainer rentals run $169 to $185 per hour and instruction $70 to $90 per hour, checked as recently as September 13, 2026. On each school's own published rates, PilotBound estimates a private pilot certificate between $18,603 and $20,335, with a median of $19,469. These are PilotBound estimates built on published rates, not quotes from the schools.
What is the cheapest flight school in Reno?
Biggest Little Flight School in Reno publishes the lowest trainer rental of the 2 Reno schools listed here, $169 per hour for its Cessna 172N, a wet rate, so fuel is included in the hourly figure, checked September 10, 2026. The lowest hourly rate is not automatically the lowest total: instructor rates, fuel basis, and the hours you actually fly decide that, which is what the per-school estimates on this page hold constant.
How current are these Reno flight school rates?
Every rate here is the school's own published figure, linked to its source and dated; the newest check in Reno is September 13, 2026, and each card and school page shows the exact date its rates were read. The directory is re-checked on a monthly cycle, and 2 more schools in Reno are listed without an estimate because they do not publish a full rate card. A school can correct or remove its listing anytime.
Which Reno airports have flight schools?
One field carries the listed schools: Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO) with 4. A school that does not state its field on the pages we read is counted in Reno without one.

Estimates use the same method as every Nevada school page: PilotBound's own completion-hours model times each school's published rates, plus the one-time fees most quotes leave out. They are ours, not the schools' quotes, and we are not affiliated with the schools. How these estimates work·Disclaimer & removal policy