Flight training at CHI Aerospace

Every aircraft is published individually and WET, and several lines carry their own effective date. The fleet is unusual: seven Van's RV-12 light sport aeroplanes alongside conventional Cessnas, an amphibian and an Alpha 160A kept for stall, spin and upset recovery.

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 an ordinary aeroplane?Missing from their site

   The only instruction figure published is attached to the amphibian, which is dual-only and needs a seaplane instructor, so it cannot be assumed to apply to the RV-12s or the 172s.

4. 4

   Does training in an RV-12 count toward a Private, or only Sport?

   Seven of the thirteen aeroplanes are light sport. That is cheap and pleasant flying, and it limits what a certificate in it lets you do.

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 CHI Aerospace's rates. The middle of what 5 New Hampshire 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. CHI Aerospace is not in it.

What we checked

The biggest published fleet in New Hampshire, thirteen tails all priced wet, and no general instruction rate. CHI also flies from Biddeford, Maine (B19), so it operates in two states. The crawl of this site was capped by its own ten-second delay at eight pages of 173, which is why its fleet and program-pricing pages had to be opened by hand. Checked August 6, 2026.