Flight training at Zone Aviation

Rates are published in member and non-member pairs, per tail, and the non-member figure is the one shown here. Membership is annual and priced BY AIRCRAFT CLASS rather than as one fee: $600 a year to get the member rate on the Warriors, $800 on the Arrow. Zone also flies a Cirrus SR20, a Cirrus SR22, a Beechcraft D95A Travel Air twin and a Flight Design CTLS light sport, and describes the Travel Air as a good aeroplane to earn a multi-engine rating on. The cost page says all listed prices include applicable taxes.

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 instructor rate? Your Private estimate implies about $65 but never says it.Missing from their site

   The cost page gives 25 dual hours at $5,925 and 15 SOLO hours at $2,580. The solo line is aircraft only, so subtracting gives roughly $65/hr of instruction. It does not reconcile to a round number, so it is worth confirming rather than assuming.

4. 4

   Do I need the $600 annual membership to train, or only to get the member rate?

   The Private estimate on the site includes the $600 fee as a line item, which suggests it is expected, but the rates page presents it as optional.

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 Zone'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. Zone is not in it.

What we checked

Publishes more per-tail detail than almost anyone in Ohio, including tail number, year, avionics and fuel burn for every aeroplane, in member and non-member pairs, and then never prices an instructor. Its Private-pilot estimate contains a genuine SOLO line, 15 hours at $2,580, which is the shape that lets an instructor rate be recovered by subtraction. Here it does not quite reconcile: the solo hour works out to $172 against a published $159 member and $179 non-member rate, which is roughly $159 plus Cuyahoga County tax, and the remainder lands on about $65.28 rather than a round figure. Close enough to ask about, not close enough to record.