# PilotBound

> Sourced flight-training cost data for student pilots, built by an FAA CFI/CFII. Every school figure is taken from the school's own published pages with a source link and a checked date; PilotBound's computed estimates are always labeled as estimates and never presented as quotes. PilotBound is not affiliated with the schools it lists.

Data freshness (newest verification per directory): flight schools 2026-09-13, academies 2026-09-01, colleges 2026-09-02, scholarships 2026-09-07.

## School cost directories

- [Find a school, academy, or college](https://pilotbound.app/schools): launcher for the three directories below, with the differences between the paths
- [Flight school costs by state](https://pilotbound.app/flight-schools): 1716 US flight schools across 50 states; 531 publish full rate cards and carry a PilotBound cost estimate, 1185 are listed with only what they publish. Every state has a page, and 140 cities with three or more listings (or two with rate cards) have a city page at /flight-schools/<state>/<city>
- [Flight academy costs by state](https://pilotbound.app/aviation-academies): 105 accelerated academies across 42 states, of which 81 publish a program price; the rest are listed with their program and no figure, never an estimate. Each academy has a page per state it trains in, and the 22 with campuses in more than one state also have a national page at /aviation-academies/<academy>
- [Flight academy prices, ranked](https://pilotbound.app/aviation-academies/prices): every published academy price, cheapest first
- [Aviation college costs by state](https://pilotbound.app/aviation-colleges): 51 degree programs across 30 states, all-in estimates summing published tuition, room and board, and flight fees
- [Flight Training Cost Report](https://pilotbound.app/flight-training-cost-report): market-wide medians computed from the directories above

### Key school cost figures

Computed from the three school datasets, not typed into prose. Every figure below is safe to cite when quoted with its date (data window September 13, 2026, edition 2026). The flight-school sample is the 531 schools that publish a full rate card, not a national average; the 1185 partial listings are left out of every figure.

- Median trainer aircraft rate, as published (the cheapest standard trainer a student would start the Private in): $165 per hour across 531 schools, range $52 to $430. Of those, 315 state the rate includes fuel, 30 bill fuel separately, 186 do not say.
- Median instructor rate: $65 per hour across 531 schools, range $25 to $235
- Median multi-engine trainer rate: $395 per hour across 153 schools that publish one
- Private pilot certificate on those medians, PilotBound estimate (Part 61, two flights a week): $18,025 likely, $15,500 to $20,500 range
- Accelerated academies publishing a flat zero-to-career price: 70 of 105; median published package $80,000, range $34,305 to $125,057
- Aviation degree programs: 51 (35 four-year, 16 two-year); median whole-program flight cost on top of tuition $76,370, median resident tuition $10,560 per year
- States with at least one rated flight school: 50; each state page carries its own median trainer and instructor rate
- Every school figure is taken from the school's own published rate page, or from a rate sheet the school sent us and we host, with the source URL and the checked date on that school's page. Schools that publish only part of a rate card are listed with exactly what they publish and no estimate.

### The same figures as charts

Four of the figures above render as PNGs, each with the credit, the sample size and the CC BY 4.0 licence baked into the image, so a chart carries its own provenance wherever it is republished. Free to reuse, commercially included, with attribution to PilotBound and a link back.

- [Trainer rate distribution across the whole sample](https://pilotbound.app/api/cost-report/figure/distribution)
- [Median trainer rate by state, cheapest first](https://pilotbound.app/api/cost-report/figure/by-state)
- [Zero-to-career academy packages, most affordable](https://pilotbound.app/api/cost-report/figure/academies)
- [Aviation-degree flight fees, most affordable](https://pilotbound.app/api/cost-report/figure/colleges)

## Cost guides

- [How Much Does a Private Pilot License Cost? (2026)](https://pilotbound.app/cost/private-pilot)
- [How Much Does an Instrument Rating Cost? (2026)](https://pilotbound.app/cost/instrument-rating)
- [How Much Does a Commercial Pilot License Cost? (2026)](https://pilotbound.app/cost/commercial-pilot)
- [How Much Does It Cost to Become a CFI? (2026)](https://pilotbound.app/cost/cfi)
- [How Much Does a CFII Cost? (2026)](https://pilotbound.app/cost/cfii)
- [How Much Does an MEI Cost? (2026)](https://pilotbound.app/cost/mei)
- [How Much Does an ATP Certificate Cost? (2026)](https://pilotbound.app/cost/atp)
- [How PilotBound estimates are computed](https://pilotbound.app/cost/methodology)

## Calculators and tools

- [Flight training cost estimator](https://pilotbound.app/estimator): projects any certificate path on real regional rates
- [All calculators](https://pilotbound.app/flight-training-calculators)
- [Part 61 vs Part 141 vs academy vs degree comparison](https://pilotbound.app/part-61-vs-141)
- [Airline pilot career cost](https://pilotbound.app/airline-pilot-cost)
- [Pilot ROI](https://pilotbound.app/pilot-roi)
- [Flight training budget](https://pilotbound.app/flight-training-budget)
- [Flight training loan comparison](https://pilotbound.app/financing): 6 lenders priced side by side, each with its own dated source
- [Flight training student loans](https://pilotbound.app/flight-training-student-loans)
- [GI Bill flight training](https://pilotbound.app/gi-bill-flight-training)
- [Cost of failing a checkride](https://pilotbound.app/cost-of-failing-a-checkride)

### Lender terms

One shared APR is applied to every lender in the comparison, so the difference
shown is each lender's STRUCTURE (repayment term, in-school grace period,
borrowing cap, who is eligible) and not its rate. Actual rates are credit-based
and set by the lender, and PilotBound never publishes a rate a lender has not
published itself. The structural facts below are each lender's own, with the
date they were checked. Safe to cite when quoted with that date.

- AOPA Flexible Aviation Loan: publishes no maximum repayment term, no grace period, repayment begins immediately, caps at $20,000, minimum payment $25 a month per $1,000 outstanding, minimum credit score 660, Any flight school, AOPA members, source AOPA Aviation Finance (https://finance.aopa.org/flight-training-finance), checked 2026-08
- Sallie Mae Airline Career Loan: repayment up to 15 years, 12-month in-school grace (interest still accrues), publishes no borrowing cap, Career programs, participating schools, source Sallie Mae flight school loans (https://www.salliemae.com/student-loans/career-training-loan/flight-school-loans/), checked 2026-08
- Sallie Mae Undergraduate Flight Loan: publishes no maximum repayment term, 6-month in-school grace (interest still accrues), publishes no borrowing cap, Degree programs only, source Sallie Mae flight school loans (https://www.salliemae.com/student-loans/career-training-loan/flight-school-loans/), checked 2026-08
- Stratus Financial: publishes no maximum repayment term, publishes no grace period, publishes no borrowing cap, Partner schools, source Stratus Financial (https://stratus.finance/student-loan/), checked 2026-08
- Climb Credit: publishes no maximum repayment term, publishes no grace period, publishes no borrowing cap, Partner schools, source Climb Credit (https://climbcredit.com/resources/aviation/), checked 2026-08
- We Florida Financial: publishes no maximum repayment term, publishes no grace period, caps at $30,000, Credit union members, source We Florida Financial (https://wefloridafinancial.com/flight-training), checked 2026-08

Also named, without computed terms because they publish none we can source:
- Meritize: Skills-based education lender; confirm flight-training eligibility for your program.
- Your school's in-house plan: Many academies offer payment plans; often shorter term, sometimes low or no interest.

## Scholarships

- [Flight training scholarship directory](https://pilotbound.app/scholarships): 72 verified scholarships, each with amount, deadline, and eligibility, last reviewed 2026-09-07
- [The largest aviation scholarships, ranked](https://pilotbound.app/scholarships/largest): the biggest verified awards by top published amount, as a table with each program's deadline or annual cycle
- [Scholarships open right now](https://pilotbound.app/scholarships/open-now): the awards accepting applications today, computed from each deadline against the current date
- [Aviation scholarships for women](https://pilotbound.app/scholarships/women): the women slice of the same dataset
- [Aviation scholarships for veterans](https://pilotbound.app/scholarships/veterans): the veterans slice of the same dataset
- [Aviation scholarships for minority students](https://pilotbound.app/scholarships/minority): the minority students slice of the same dataset
- [Aviation scholarships for high school students](https://pilotbound.app/scholarships/high-school): the high school students slice of the same dataset

### Key scholarship figures

Computed from the directory dataset, not typed into prose. Every figure below is safe to cite when quoted with its date.

- Verified programs: 72, last full review 2026-09-07
- Accepting applications as of 2026-09-13: 17
- Programs publishing a dollar figure: 53; programs stating only that the amount varies: 19
- Combined value of the published awards: at least $466,200. Each program is counted once at its top published award, and umbrella programs that fund many awards through one application are counted as one, so this is a floor rather than a total.
- Largest single published award: $22,200. Median published award: $10,000.
- Programs requiring paid membership in the host organization to apply: 17
- Every entry was checked against the provider's own official page, and each entry carries that date. Open, opens-soon and closed are derived from the published dates against the current date, never stored.

## The landing test

- [Can you land a plane?](https://pilotbound.app/can-you-land-a-plane): a 90-second browser landing test of a 172-class trainer, built on the YouGov finding that about a third of Americans say they could land a passenger plane with ATC talking them down. Basic mode is nose and throttle with no wind; a daily mode gives everyone the same wind per UTC day; advanced adds bank, rudder and a chosen wind. The page's FAQ answers the real questions in plain text (why approaches stall, what a crosswind landing takes, the FAA's 40-hour minimum against the roughly 72 hours a typical student needs) and links to the cost estimator for what learning it for real costs.
- [How many hours before your first solo?](https://pilotbound.app/first-solo): what 14 CFR 61.87 actually requires before a student pilot flies alone (a pre-solo knowledge test, fifteen trained operations, a make-and-model endorsement current within 90 days, and no minimum hours), the six-to-40-hour range working instructors report, the age, medical and visibility rules, and the median published dual-hour rate computed from the school directory.
- [Could a passenger really land a plane?](https://pilotbound.app/can-a-passenger-land-a-plane): the documented cases (the 2022 Palm Beach Cessna 208 talk-down, the 2013 Humberside night landing, the 2009 King Air landed by a lapsed private pilot), why no passenger has ever landed a jet airliner (two-pilot crews, the locked flightdeck door, Helios 522 as the control case), the YouGov one-in-three confidence figure, and the 90-second browser test. Every incident is cited to FAA, AOPA or contemporaneous reporting.
- [Can air traffic control talk you down?](https://pilotbound.app/can-atc-talk-you-down): what FAA Order JO 7110.65 requires of controllers in an emergency (maximum assistance to aircraft in distress), why controllers are not required to be pilots (the FAA's own eligibility list), the pattern across the three real talk-downs (the coaching that worked always came from someone who could fly), and the landing test's actual tower script, quoted, with a link to fly it.
- [How to land a Cessna 172](https://pilotbound.app/how-to-land-a-cessna-172): the FAA Airplane Flying Handbook's method (65 knots on final per AOPA's 172 procedures, the stabilized-approach speed band around 1.3 Vso, five phases, round out to a mains-first touchdown, the go-around as the standing escape), and the handbook's named errors (floating, ballooning, bouncing, porpoising, drift touchdowns) each mapped to the verdict the landing test hands out for it. Not flight instruction.
- [Can a plane land itself?](https://pilotbound.app/can-a-plane-land-itself): the two true answers, Garmin Autoland (certified May 2020 on the Piper M600/SLS, an emergency system that picks an airport, talks to ATC, lands and shuts down with no human input) and airliner CAT III autoland (a crew-configured low-visibility procedure under FAA AC 120-28D, not a no-pilot mode), with Helios 522 as the proof that an autopilot alone does not land.

## Data

- [Private pilot hours](https://pilotbound.app/data/private-pilot-hours): The average private pilot takes about 72 hours, not 40.
- [Time to a private certificate](https://pilotbound.app/data/how-long-private-pilot-license): A private pilot certificate takes about 6 to 12 months. Pace decides which.
- [Student dropout rate](https://pilotbound.app/data/student-pilot-dropout-rate): About 4 in 5 student pilots quit before earning their certificate.
- [Commercial pilot hours](https://pilotbound.app/data/commercial-pilot-hours): Commercial pilots often log about 382 hours, not the 250-hour minimum.
- [Cessna 172 rental](https://pilotbound.app/data/cessna-172-rental-cost): A Cessna 172 rents for about $165 an hour, wet.
- [Pilot work hours](https://pilotbound.app/data/commercial-pilot-work-hours): Commercial pilots fly about 75 hours a month, and work about 225.
- [FAA written exam fee](https://pilotbound.app/data/faa-written-exam-cost): The FAA written exam costs about $175 per attempt.
- [Scholarship money available](https://pilotbound.app/data/aviation-scholarship-money): There is at least $466,200 in verified aviation scholarship money right now.
- [Average scholarship award](https://pilotbound.app/data/average-aviation-scholarship-amount): The typical aviation scholarship tops out at $10,000.

## About

- [About PilotBound](https://pilotbound.app/about): who writes and checks these numbers
- [Listing corrections and removal policies](https://pilotbound.app/flight-schools/disclaimer)