Flight training at Platinum Aviation

Every tail is published wet on the fleet page. Platinum posts no instructor rate anywhere on the site: its course cost sheets bill ground instruction at $55/hr, and the dual-versus-solo spread on those sheets works out to the same figure, but neither is Platinum quoting a price for flight instruction, so no instruction rate is recorded here. Those sheets also price a Diamond DA40 that does not appear on the fleet page, so confirm which airplanes are actually available. Platinum publishes the Seneca but does not advertise multi-engine training.

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 flight instruction cost per hour, and is it the same rate as the $55/hr ground instruction on your course sheets?Missing from their site

   The site prices ground instruction and never prices flight instruction, and those are commonly different numbers.

4. 4

   Your course sheets price a Diamond DA40 that isn't on the fleet page. Which airplanes can I actually book?

   The two pages disagree about the fleet, and the DA40 appears in every cost breakdown.

5. 5

   Do you train multi-engine in the Seneca?

   The twin is published at an hourly rate but no multi-engine training is advertised anywhere on the site.

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 Platinum's rates. The middle of what 9 Utah 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. Platinum is not in it.

What we checked

Nine tails published wet across two bases, and no instruction rate anywhere on the site. The course cost sheets imply one, but an implied figure is not a quoted one, so the fleet is listed and the instruction rate is left as the question to ask.