Flight training at Dakota Flight Center

The per-aircraft pages give a rental figure each and never say whether fuel is included. Dakota Flight also publishes a Private Pilot budget of $10,000 to $12,000, which is a planning figure rather than a 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

   Do the published aircraft rates include fuel, or is fuel billed separately?

   The site does not say, and it is the difference between two rates that look identical and are not.

4. 4

   What does an instructor cost per hour today?Missing from their site

   The budget page implies $65/hr, but the rental figure in that same table works out at $125/hr against a published $160, so the table looks out of date and the instruction figure with it.

5. 5

   Is the Warrior still $160?

   The aircraft page and the budget page disagree about it, which is the clearest sign one of the two has not been updated.

6. 6

   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.

7. 7

   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.

8. 8

   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 Dakota Flight's rates. South Dakota has too few published rate cards for a state median, so this is all 283 schools we track, to hold your phone quote against.

From the schools here that publish full rate cards, the same sample behind the Flight Training Cost Report. Dakota Flight is not in it.

What we checked

Four aircraft priced individually, half of them Cubs for light sport and tailwheel work. The instruction rate is derivable from a budget table and is NOT recorded here, because the rental line in that same table works out at $125/hr against a published $160, so the table is stale and anything derived from it would be too. Checked August 6, 2026.