The 10 Steps to Evaluating a Flight Training Provider

In the whirlwind of information online—good, bad, and AI—you’ll find a long list of flight training organizations out there ready to help you learn how to fly. And most operate in a sincere fashion, wanting as much as you do to get you from zero hours to flying.

But the last thing you should do is run over to the nearest airport and knock on the door of the first flight school you see. At least not without a plan. This isn’t rocket science—and it hasn’t changed all that much in the past 20 years—but it’s worth understanding what you’re looking for before you go in and find yourself surrounded by someone’s idea of what’s right for you.

1. Define Your Goal

In the current world, with the FAA recently bringing MOSAIC to life, you don’t need a traditional private pilot certificate in order to fly a whole lot of the new and gently loved single-engine aircraft in the skies. You can go for a sport pilot certificate, which will allow you to fly some pretty cool new stuff. 

But perhaps the private certificate provides the best solution for you, if you either want to fly something larger than a Cessna 182 or with multiple engines. Or if you’d like to make a career of this. While going the sport pilot route will get you through the initial process faster, you’re going to need the private program to build skills upon, like flying in the clouds, or flying a large jet.

If your goal is to fly for yourself, whether for fun or in pursuit of business opportunities, you can go a couple of different routes. You might select a training operation that is endorsed by the manufacturer of the aircraft you want to fly, like a Cirrus Training Center, a Piper Flight Training Network school, or a Cessna Pilot Center. 

Schools will let you know that they operate under one of two regulatory bases from the FAA: Part 61, which allows for maximum flexibility and self-pacing, or Part 141, which provides significant structure in return for a proven path to specific milestones. You might expect a Part 61 school to align with a personal mission and Part 141 with a career mission, and you wouldn’t be far off. But both options are viable for you to learn to fly initially.

2. Pick Your Ideal Environment

You may have a few locations to choose from, depending on where in the world you live. Picking the nearest airport to you has advantages, certainly, when it comes to fitting into your schedule. However, on the flip side of that, you may thrive and go through the program faster in an environment where you fit in. Do you like a fast-paced, modern experience? Or do vintage aircraft resonate with you? Would you prefer to go through ground school in a collegiate environment, or self-study with instructor-guided sessions?

At the core, learning to fly is a mostly one-on-one activity with an instructor and you, and it’s critical to be in the right place with the right peeps in order to succeed. That said, distance to the training location from your workplace, home, or college campus matters a lot, so make that drive when there’s traffic, and be sure you can live with it. 

3. Interview the Candidates

Hopefully there is more than one flight school in your region, and more than one instructor there to choose from. And if that’s not the case, you can still proceed with the due diligence that follows—in fact, it becomes even more important if there appears to be a lack of competition for your business.

Regardless, your next step is to set up appointments at each of the places you’re considering, and plan to spend at least an hour both touring the facility and getting one-on-one time with a CFI that the school introduces you too. One thing that is new in the past 20 years: You can also look on sites to find individual instructors and schools that have been reviewed by your peers.

Talk not only with the instructor you’re paired with, but also chat with the chief CFI or director of training, too; in any academy experience, they will set the tone with their leadership, or lack of it. They will also be delivering your stage checks—interim flight tests—in all likelihood if the school operates under Part 141.

4. Check the Fleet

You may prefer new aircraft. But don’t be distracted by shiny paint schemes and miss what’s important: Are there enough airplanes on the flight line for the amount of students (look for a 6-10:1 ratio), or are a lot of idle aircraft unused? And even more importantly, how are they maintained? It’s a great idea to add the director of maintenance to your interview schedule while you’re at it.

Though training aircraft often come with some age on them—and the real beauty is under the cowling—appearances matter. An unkempt fleet with torn interiors, cracking plastic, and drab paint often signal more neglect in the logbooks. An owner that can’t afford to keep the fleet clean may be cutting corners elsewhere.

5. Look at the Schedule

Many flight schools use online booking, so as part of your tour, have the instructor show you which platform they use. Not only do you want to make sure the instructor’s schedule aligns with yours—do they work weekdays only, when you need to fly mostly on weekends?—but that preview can also give you insight into how organized the CFI is, and the school too.

6. Interview a Few Graduates

…or those who recently took a checkride successfully there. You can find folks online, though your mileage may vary. A managed platform will be more accurate than the rantings you find on Facebook. The main question: Would they go through it again at that school? Would they send a child or friend there?

7. Follow the Money

With the regular cadence of flight schools making the news for going out of business and keeping student deposits, you can probably guess that you need to be wary about supporting someone’s Ponzi scheme. However, though few training organizations are willfully perpetuating fraud, you may also get caught up in someone’s bad business sense and a failed enterprise as a result.

Will you be asked to make a deposit, or encouraged to buy flight time in bulk? If either of those is the case, it’s a red flag. Any monies you hand over beyond, say, $1,000, should be held in escrow, and not used to support operating cash flow. There are few financing options available, so also be suspicious of a deal that looks too good to be true.

Also, please go into your flight training with at least enough money set aside to get you through to soloing. That takes an average of 20 hours these days, so you should probably get at least $5,000 together before starting. That way you know you can finance yourself through that first big milestone.

8. Sit Down With the Syllabus

They use one, right? You should receive a copy of it up front. Even Part 61 schools need to have a training plan in place, and Part 141 academies are literally required to via their FAA approval.

The syllabus gives you a lot of talking points to cover with your CFI, and you can use the responses to your questions to help judge how well that person will be able to describe to you maneuvers, flight theory, and how aircraft systems work. 

9. Take a Discovery Flight

If you feel good at this point, you are going to want to go for a test drive. Schedule a discovery flight with your proposed instructor, which will consist of at least 30-40 minutes of ground time preflighting the airplane and a postflight debrief, and at least 30-45 minutes of flying. 

It will take an investment of a few hundred bucks on your part to go through this step, but you can save yourself a lot of heartache if you at least go around the pattern with the person you expect to fly with before committing to a training plan.

10. Listen to the Voice Inside Your Head

There’s a reason they call it a gut feeling, and to trust that gut. If you feel “off” for any reason, that is your body telling you that you need more information in order to make a good decision. Listen to those feelings, and use them to resolve any concerns, questions, or downright anxiety you have about proceeding.

Flying is one of the most splendid pursuits that humans have achieved. And we want to do everything in our power to get you off to the right start.