Flight training at Lunken Flight Training Center

Both figures here come from the excess-hours clause of the multi-engine add-on, which reads "Excess hours required will be billed at $425/hr for Aircraft (DA42NG) and $85/hr for MEI". They are real published rates but they describe the twin only. The eight Cessna 172R and 172S in the fleet, the Redbird AATD, and the PATH and FLEX programmes are not priced anywhere we could read, and a daily rental minimum applies to multi-day reservations.

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 a Cessna 172 cost per hour, and what is the instructor rate for the Private?Missing from their site

   The only published rates are the twin's, in the overage clause of a multi add-on. Eight of the ten aeroplanes are 172s and none of them is priced.

4. 4

   What do the PATH and FLEX programmes cost?

   They are the two named training tracks and neither carries a figure on the site.

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 Lunken FTC's rates. The middle of what 9 Ohio 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. Lunken FTC is not in it.

What we checked

A ten-aeroplane school at Lunken, eight Cessna 172R/S plus a Redbird AATD and a Diamond DA42-NG, running PATH and FLEX programmes and a Top Hawk aircraft. It prices none of that. The only hourly figures on the site are in the fine print of the multi-engine add-on, where the overage rates happen to disclose the twin at $425/hr and the MEI at $85/hr. THIS LISTING PREVIOUSLY SAID WE COULD NOT READ THE SITE AND THAT A HOST WAS HIDING IT; both were wrong, and the cause was a SiteGround captcha we had triggered ourselves. Re-crawled cleanly on August 7, 2026 once that cleared.