How To Find The Right Flight School

By Author: Jack G
Total Articles: 3764
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So you want to start your flight training. What do you do first? First, you should research all the local flight schools in your area. By just browsing the local flight schools website, you can get a good idea of what that flight school has to offer. Check out what type of airplanes they use for flight training. Are the airplanes new or old? How many airplanes do they have? It's up to you if you want to spend the extra cash flying a new airplane. Remember an airplane is an airplane. They might not look good but they all fly. To make it easy for you to locate all the flight schools in your area, just go to flight school list.com. They have one of the largest aviation school lists on the internet. Once you're done browsing all the flight school websites you're going to want to call and talk to a flight instructor at each flight school. I suggest that you talk to one of the flight instructors at the flight school and not the secretary. The flight instructor will be able to answer your questions in detail; the secretary will only have a general knowledge about flight training.

What questions do you ask ...
... the flight instructor?
How many flight instructors are employed at the school?
How busy is the flight school? How many hours do they fly a month?
Will I be able to schedule a flight instructor and airplane any time I want? Do they have online scheduling?
Do they have multiple types of the same aircraft? It's nice to have two of the same airplane just in case one of them is down for maintenance.
How many hours do the flight instructors have? Remember that hours don't automatically translate into teaching ability.
What types of airplanes do you use for training?
What kind of maintenance do you perform on your rental aircraft?
What are the aircraft rental rates?
Is fuel included in the rental rate?
Are there any fuel surcharges? Most flight school will add a fuel surcharge when the fuel rates rise.
What is the flight instructor rate?
How much is ground instruction?
Are there any other aircraft rental fees or taxes?
Do you have any discounts for purchasing a block of time? Usually when you purchase a block of time, you purchase it in 10 hour increments or whatever that school offers. You put the money down right away and you get a certain percentage off per hour of flight time. It depends on the flight school, they are all different.
In general how many hours does it take to get your pilots certificate at this school? The national average is about 60 to 70 hours of flight time.
What type of training materials do you use?
What am I expected to buy?
Typically how long is a flight lesson?
When can I schedule a tour of your flight school and aircraft?

Once your done talking to the flight instructors, you should go pay a visit to the schools that best answered your questions. Try to talk to a couple of the flight instructors at the school. Sit down with them and ask them a few questions.

Here are a few examples:
How long have you been flying?
How many hours do you have?
Do you like flying?
How do you like teaching?
How long are you planning on teaching here?
How many students do you have?
Do you want to work for the airlines?
Are you a career flight instructor?

As you're asking the flight instructors your questions, see how they react. Are they happy to answer all your questions or do they look like your bothering them? If they act as if you're bothering them you probably want to stay away from that instructor. Once you're done with the flight instructors, try to talk to a few students. Ask the students how they like flying at the school. Do they like the flight instructors? How hard is it to schedule an airplane and instructor?

Check out how the office looks. Is it neat? Are the airplanes in good shape or are they all beat up? Hang around the flight school for a couple hours if you can. You'll be able to see how they run the operation. As long as your there ask one of the flight instructors if you can rid along on a training flight to observe. Ok, know your done researching all the schools. Sit down and decide which one of the flight schools you liked best. Which one of the instructors did you like talking to? Who had the cheapest rates? Remember just with anything, you get what you pay for! Cheap is not always better. Now call the flight school that you think is the best and schedule your first lesson. Remember this article is for reference only. There are a thousands of questions you can ask a flight instructor about flight training, I just can't cover them all right know I hope this article will help you decide which flight school is right for you.