Flight training at Cutting Edge Aviation

Flight instruction: $45/hr

This is the instructor's fee for written-test preparation, published beside a group class price. It is the school's own hourly instruction figure, but it is attached to ground work rather than to flying, and no aeroplane is priced anywhere on the site.

1. 1

   What is the hourly rate on your cheapest trainer, and which airplane is that?Missing from their site

   This is the number that is missing from the site, and it is the largest line on your bill.

2. 2

   Is that rate wet or dry, meaning does it include fuel?Missing from their site

   A dry rate and a wet rate are not comparable. Dry rates can run $40 to $60 an hour lower for the same airplane.

3. 3

   What does the aeroplane cost per hour, and is the published instructor fee the same in the air as on the ground?Missing from their site

   The only published rate is an instructor fee quoted in the context of written-test preparation. No aeroplane is priced at all.

4. 4

   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.

5. 5

   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.

6. 6

   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 Cutting Edge Aviation's rates. The middle of what 47 Texas 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. Cutting Edge Aviation is not in it.

What we checked

GROUND INSTRUCTION PRICED, FLYING NOT. The published hourly instructor fee sits inside a written-test-prep offer alongside a fixed price for a group class that needs a minimum enrolment to run. Whether the same rate applies in the aeroplane is exactly what a call should establish.