Flight training at Innovative Aviation

Aircraft: $70/hr (dry)

Time-building blocks only, and dry: five hours at $350 ($70/hr), ten at $650 ($65/hr), fifteen at $900 ($60/hr) and twenty at $1,100 ($55/hr), before sales tax. The page heads them as 2023 block rates. There is no walk-up hourly rate and no training rate.

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

   What does an hour of dual cost, and what is the walk-up rate outside a time-building block?Missing from their site

   Every published figure is a solo time-building block bought in five-hour multiples, quoted dry, and the page is headed with a 2023 date.

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 Innovative Aviation's rates. The middle of what 16 Pennsylvania 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. Innovative Aviation is not in it.

What we checked

The only rates here are TIME-BUILDING blocks, which is a price to a certificated pilot rather than to a student, and they are dry and dated 2023 by the page's own heading. Same shape as No Limits Aviation in Idaho. One of two operators at Jimmy Stewart Field with Lechene Aviation.