Looking to start a small flight school

Rate my plan

  • Great idea

    Votes: 8 19.0%

  • Good

    Votes: 11 26.2%

  • Neutral

    Votes: 10 23.8%

  • Bad

    Votes: 3 7.1%

  • Terrible

    Votes: 10 23.8%
  • Total voters
    42
  • Poll closed .
I just got quotes from an IA at my field for the annual and 100 hour, and I changed my price tables. It is still affordable.

Prices:
100hour: $500 - $800
Annual: $1000 - $1200

Minus $50 on each for owner assisted.
 
forseth11 said:
May I ask, how many hours do your aircraft fly each year in your flight school?
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I will try to answer more than you asked.

The aircraft flew 250 hours in the preceding 12 months and I flew an additional 75 hours in other people’s aircraft.

I gave about 400 hours of ground instruction counting briefing, debriefing for the missions, cross country planning, chart reading and weather briefings. Most of ground school is one on one and never more than four clients at a time for ground instruction.

I recommend King Schools for the knowledge test and then manage the difference for gyroplanes with ground instruction. I make a small commission on the King School package.

I charge by the hour an some take longer and some take less time.

I typically charge around $3,500 for an add on Sport Pilot Rating. Most of add on clients are high time pilots that have a lot to unlearn. Some take longer, some much less.

Sport Pilot rating for a primary student is typically around $7,500 not counting travel or the practical test. Most of my clients are north of 50 years old so they may be learning challenged.

If a primary student has their own two place aircraft I typically charge around $3,000 to prepare for the check ride.

Time spent on the enterprise is difficult to calculate exactly. A rough estimate would be about 1,450 hours in the last 12 months. A man year is 2,000 hours. I decided on a flight instructor renewal course and that took about 50 hours. The TSA refresher course takes about five hours and is every year. I spend a lot of time on paperwork for the FAA.

As I learn more and create training materials I suspect I will spend less time of lesson preparation.

The aircraft has been relatively trouble free other than typical oil changes, magneto service, sparkplugs, tires and brakes.

My 100 hours services have been averaging around $800 each and I have them done as annuals.

My clients have been hard on my helmet/headsets and I spent about $500 in the last year; I have three helmets/headsets so I am not down for headset repair.

I am building a reserve for the engine (Lycoming IO-320 $20,000) and rotor system ($12,000). The rest is just expensed out.

It is a one of a kind experimental so I don’t know when it will simply be worn out and will need replacing. A replacement aircraft will cost around $70,000 and may be more fragile.
 
Vance Breese said:
I will try to answer more than you asked.

The aircraft flew 250 hours in the preceding 12 months and I flew an additional 75 hours in other people’s aircraft.

I gave about 400 hours of ground instruction counting briefing, debriefing for the missions, cross country planning, chart reading and weather briefings. Most of ground school is one on one and never more than four clients at a time for ground instruction.

I recommend King Schools for the knowledge test and then manage the difference for gyroplanes with ground instruction. I make a small commission on the King School package.

I charge by the hour an some take longer and some take less time.

I typically charge around $3,500 for an add on Sport Pilot Rating. Most of add on clients are high time pilots that have a lot to unlearn. Some take longer, some much less.

Sport Pilot rating for a primary student is typically around $7,500 not counting travel or the practical test. Most of my clients are north of 50 years old so they may be learning challenged.

If a primary student has their own two place aircraft I typically charge around $3,000 to prepare for the check ride.

Time spent on the enterprise is difficult to calculate exactly. A rough estimate would be about 1,450 hours in the last 12 months. A man year is 2,000 hours. I decided on a flight instructor renewal course and that took about 50 hours. The TSA refresher course takes about five hours and is every year. I spend a lot of time on paperwork for the FAA.

As I learn more and create training materials I suspect I will spend less time of lesson preparation.

The aircraft has been relatively trouble free other than typical oil changes, magneto service, sparkplugs, tires and brakes.

My 100 hours services have been averaging around $800 each and I have them done as annuals.

My clients have been hard on my helmet/headsets and I spent about $500 in the last year; I have three helmets/headsets so I am not down for headset repair.

I am building a reserve for the engine (Lycoming IO-320 $20,000) and rotor system ($12,000). The rest is just expensed out.

It is a one of a kind experimental so I don’t know when it will simply be worn out and will need replacing. A replacement aircraft will cost around $70,000 and may be more fragile.
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Wow. Thanks so much! Out of those 250 hours the aircraft flew, how much of it is flight instruction time?
 
forseth11 said:
Wow. Thanks so much! Out of those 250 hours the aircraft flew, how much of it is flight instruction time?
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A quick look at my log book shows 192 hours of dual given in the aircraft and 62 was for fun and promotion for a total of 254.
The 250 hours was from memory.

According to my letter of deviation authority (LODA) I can’t rent the experimental aircraft.

The LODA is what allows me to charge money for training in an experimental aircraft.
 
forseth11 said:
...

The other 50% partner is all for the flight school because they get some rental money from it.

They are also going to be trained by me as soon as we start. They know that the student schedules go above their flying

.
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These two statements cause me concern. I’m not a fan of what’s essentially an asset partnership that’s being brought into a sole prop business, especially as the critical asset for driving profits.

In essence, it sounds to me like there are two separate things here. The first is a the partnership leasing back the aircraft to the second, your flight school.

What happens to your business when the asset partnership runs its course? What happens to the partnership if the sole prop business destroys the asset? What happens if the leaseback doesn’t generate enough revenue to meet the other partners expectation? What happens if the business doesn’t generate enough revenue to pay for the lease?
 
Nicely done sir; our numbers are not that far apart.
I am at 91.03 per hour for 250 hours per year.
I did not see the income.
I did not see a tie down fee.
I don't see anything for your labor to manage the website and do the oil change.
I don't see anything for you labor to do the pre-flight.
I don't see anything for labor washing the aircraft.
Are you going to charge for your ground time for the briefing and debriefing?
Are you going to charge for your time to fill out the FAA forms and the clients log book?
How will you manage ground school for the knowledge test?
These are questions I feel you need to answer for yourself.
Thank you for sharing the fun!
 
All I can say is WOW!!!

At those rates, I would fly out and try to get everything in a 2 week period, flying everyday, while staying with my Mom, who happens to live in Benbrook! As you are significantly cheaper than I can find here in the greater Atlanta area. Let me know when you get it up and running!
 
Also, if not previously mentioned, in your cash flow projections to start at gross, subtract your quarterly income tax estimate (set aside in an account specifically to pay income tax) and all expenses projected to see what your breakeven point is to make a profit.
 
Vance Breese said:
Nicely done sir; our numbers are not that far apart.
I am at 91.03 per hour for 250 hours per year.
I did not see the income.
I did not see a tie down fee.
I don't see anything for your labor to manage the website and do the oil change.
I don't see anything for you labor to do the pre-flight.
I don't see anything for labor washing the aircraft.
Are you going to charge for your ground time for the briefing and debriefing?
Are you going to charge for your time to fill out the FAA forms and the clients log book?
How will you manage ground school for the knowledge test?
These are questions I feel you need to answer for yourself.
Thank you for sharing the fun!
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I have income on the second tab.
I have free hangar space.
I am a software developer, so I used to build websites and software for a living.
I can wash the aircraft.
Yes I was going to charge for that. I was going to do 45 for flight and 35 for ground.
Do you charge for filling out faa forms?
 
I have income from a software company that doesn’t take up much of my time.

The point I was trying to make is; to assume your time is free tends to have you working too many hours with misplaced priorities.

I have approached each business I have had as though I was paying someone to do all the work. Once a business is up and running (not so much for a flight school that is not intended to grow) I write down everything I do and try to find someone else to do it because my time is precious and I have a poor work ethic. That is why the software company doesn’t take up much of my time.

I have not been charging for filling out FAA forms and I suspect I should.

At first I was embarrassed about how much time I took and imagined it was a learning process and at some point I would be fast. I am still not fast and IACRA is not friendly software. I am getting faster and I have learned from my mistakes. A flat fee might work.

Part of my job as a flight instructor is to review what the client put down and getting them to correct it can be time consuming.

It may be time to amend my thinking on this and charge for my time.

I charge the same for flight and ground because flying is fun and ground is less fun.

My real teaching is done on the ground and the flying is just to validate what I have taught on the ground. I feel the aircraft is a terrible place to try to teach concepts.

This is contrary to most of the twenty six flight instructors I have flown with but aligned with the best of them.

I always preflight the aircraft before the customer arrives and don’t charge for that. I feel teaching someone to preflight is too big a distraction for me to do a proper preflight. If I find something I leave it for them to find.

As they get better at preflight I may do something else while they preflight the aircraft and not charge tem for that time.

In the beginning I charge for the time I am supervising their preflight briefing, later I just quiz them on it.

I do not charge for anything involved in lesson preparation.

Basically I charge for all the time I am face to face with the client.

At this time I am not charging for telephone time and some clients abuse that.

I do charge for reviewing their cross country flight plans.

If I have lunch with the client I don’t charge for that time even though most of the conversation is instructional.

Thank you; this review of my process has helped me to rethink some of the thoughts I had before I started and review my cost estimates. This is something I should do more often but I am having too much fun.

I have found teaching is a wonderful way to learn.

Many of the FAA regulations are written in blood and I try to help the client understand the thought behind the regulations.

I feel the most important thing is to help the client recognize their progress and the value in each lesson; very few of my flight instructors did that expecting me to figure out the value on my own. This is not my nature.

Take pictures, have fun and share the fun with your clients and their friends.
 
Hello everyone. It is time for me to decide which way to go. I have compiled the following graph to compare owning a flight school vs working for one. I included a pros and cons list below. Please let me know what I should go for.

(On the graph, low means the lowest I will likely make. And high means the highest I will likely make.)

Note:
  • This is before taxes
  • The owning a flight school is using conservative numbers
  • Assumes 8 weeks off yearly due to weather, vacation, ext.
4dd5e5cf368c9e7d54f87b9d63fe92ba.png


Owning a flight school
PROS:
  • Hourly is higher
  • Less hours per week
  • No commute (I live in the hangar)
  • Get business experience
  • Potential to grow
  • It works for other people
  • My own boss
  • I have free hangar space to get started
  • I have the money to get started
CONS:
  • Risky (Potential loss)
  • A little less flight hours than working for a flight school
  • Will make about the same as at a flight school
  • Takes a lot of work to get off the ground
  • Stressful
Working for a flight school
PROS:
  • Makes the same as owning one
  • More flight hours
  • Stable
  • Less risk
  • No startup cost
  • Other schools have multiple planes, so I can still work when one is down for maintenance
  • Don't need to worry about business expenses in addition to personal expenses
  • Potentially get multi engine time (good for airlines)
  • Easy to transfer to airlines after
  • Can learn from other instructors
  • Always hiring
CONS:
  • No business experience
  • Requires a commute (30 - 60 minutes each way)
  • May interfere with personal schedule more often
  • Make less for each hour worked
Thank you everyone!
​
 
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When I work for someone else I am paying them to market me and solve problems.

When I work for myself I am getting paid to market me and solve problems.

So the question for me becomes how good am I at marketing me and solving problems and am I worth what I am paying me (or giving up).

I feel the nuts and bolts of the business are not that important.

I feel sales and marketing are the key to profitability for any business.

In my experience a one man business will never be more than a good job. To make more you need to have employees that are paying you to market them and solve problems.

The nice thing about working for a flight school is you may find a mentor who will help you become a better flight instructor and may even teach you about the business.

I have not lacked for mentors despite the isolation of a one man flight school.

I feel running a business is a wonderful education that has helped me in everything I have done in my life and allowed me a freedom unavailable to most people with a job.

It is up to you because you are the one who needs to live with the consequences of whatever decisions you make.
 
forseth11 said:
Hello everyone. It is time for me to decide which way to go. I have compiled the following graph to compare owning a flight school vs working for one. I included a pros and cons list below. Please let me know what I should go for.

(On the graph, low means the lowest I will likely make. And high means the highest I will likely make.)

Note:
  • This is before taxes
  • The owning a flight school is using conservative numbers
  • Assumes 8 weeks off yearly due to weather, vacation, ext.
4dd5e5cf368c9e7d54f87b9d63fe92ba.png


Owning a flight school
PROS:
  • Hourly is higher
  • Less hours per week
  • No commute (I live in the hangar)
  • Get business experience
  • Potential to grow
  • It works for other people
  • My own boss
  • I have free hangar space to get started
  • I have the money to get started
CONS:
  • Risky (Potential loss)
  • A little less flight hours than working for a flight school
  • Will make about the same as at a flight school
  • Takes a lot of work to get off the ground
  • Stressful
Working for a flight school
PROS:
  • Makes the same as owning one
  • More flight hours
  • Stable
  • Less risk
  • No startup cost
  • Other schools have multiple planes, so I can still work when one is down for maintenance
  • Don't need to worry about business expenses in addition to personal expenses
  • Potentially get multi engine time (good for airlines)
  • Easy to transfer to airlines after
  • Can learn from other instructors
  • Always hiring
CONS:
  • No business experience
  • Requires a commute (30 - 60 minutes each way)
  • May interfere with personal schedule more often
  • Make less for each hour worked
Thank you everyone!
​
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I think it is a great idea that you are planning to start a business at a young age. You are going to learn a lot and that knowledge and the confidence you gain will serve you the rest of your life.

Now for some reality. The first few years of any business are a struggle. You will work long hours for little or no pay. As Vance indicated, if it is just you, you will be the CEO and chief bottle washer. You will do this, because you are building something, not because it pays better than working for someone else and you certainly won’t be working less hours, not for a while. Bringing on employees will give you more flexibility, but also more responsibility. Things like sales and marketing don’t just take care of themselves. It takes time and effort. Nobody will know you have the best value until you somehow tell them. Throwing some posts up on Facebook won’t get it done. You will need to pick up the phone and also knock on doors. Vance’s experience will be different than yours. This isn’t his first rodeo and he brings well honed business and marketing skills to the table. You will be learning as you go. Expect your hourly pay to be much less, but also expect the satisfaction and experience gained to be much greater.
 
This is one of my favorite quotes that I have on my wall.

"Whether you think you can, or think you can't-your right."

Henry Ford
 
One item to consider with many one man businesses. If you can make $30 an hour doing that trade or profession working for someone else 40 hours a week, you need about TWICE that working for yourself. The reason is you can probably only bill for 20 hours a week. That and you have your employee burden that you have to pay yourself. (Employee burden is employment taxes, business insurance and health care (if provided) etc). Flying has a lot of cancelled flight due to weather and aircraft maintenance issues etc.

Aircraft maintenance per hour is usually about the same as fuel costs per hour BTW.
 
coloradobluesky said:
One item to consider with many one man businesses. If you can make $30 an hour doing that trade or profession working for someone else 40 hours a week, you need about TWICE that working for yourself. The reason is you can probably only bill for 20 hours a week. That and you have your employee burden that you have to pay yourself. (Employee burden is employment taxes, business insurance and health care (if provided) etc). Flying has a lot of cancelled flight due to weather and aircraft maintenance issues etc.

Aircraft maintenance per hour is usually about the same as fuel costs per hour BTW.
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Working for myself, I would charge $45 dollars per hour plus $15 per hour when renting out. So combined amount of $60 per hour, BUT if I work for a flight school, I get $20 per hour, but I end up with more income each week and each year due to it being stable and I don't have to take time marketing.
 
forseth11 said:
Working for myself, I would charge $45 dollars per hour plus $15 per hour when renting out. So combined amount of $60 per hour, BUT if I work for a flight school, I get $20 per hour, but I end up with more income each week and each year due to it being stable and I don't have to take time marketing.
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I guess it is all how you look at it. You will be spending time on the business. This doesn't mean teaching. It means paperwork, marketing, documenting processes, calling vendors, paying bills, cleaning the plane and many more things. There will be no one else to get these things done. If you have a lesson in the morning and you need to cleanup some vomit from the carpet, guess who gets to do it? If you need a lesson plan for a transfer student, renewing your business license, updating your website, printing some brochures, attending a fly in to talk to potential new customers. The list goes on and on. Hourly pay is for hourly employees. You will not be that. You will be a business owner and the buck stops with you. But, just like many of us don't worry about how much flying costs us per hour, as a business owner, your hourly rate isn't something you would typically think about. You are building something and that takes time and effort. In the end, the business could be an asset (not always). Good luck and enjoy the process!
 
I'm confused. I don't pretend to have all the regs memorized but I did not think you could instruct in your own plane without jumping thru a bunch of hoops with the FAA. Someone please straighten me out.
 
You need 100 hour inspections and a CFI etc to be FAA legal. Then there is the insurance.
 
forseth11 said:
How can I get a quote for liability insurance? Doesn't insurance to rent out from AOPA cover that kind of thing?
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It's been a while since I rented out an airplane, but about 15 years ago, I had a 182RG that had on leaseback and then I rented it out myself. While on leaseback, it was used for commercial training and straight rental with a 20 hour time in type and a checkout by a CFI. When the plane was being rented, my insurance was about $8,000 per year. When I stopped renting it out, the insurance was $1,200 per year.

Now this is an apples-oranges comparison (182RG is a whole different animal than a 152), but that insurance quote sounds so low that I would be making sure the person quoting it knows what you're going to be doing. And get it in writing!
 
forseth11 said:
I just got quotes from an IA at my field for the annual and 100 hour, and I changed my price tables. It is still affordable.

Prices:
100hour: $500 - $800
Annual: $1000 - $1200

Minus $50 on each for owner assisted.
Click to expand...
For $50 I'd find something more productive to do.
 
BarryCooper said:
I'm confused. I don't pretend to have all the regs memorized but I did not think you could instruct in your own plane without jumping thru a bunch of hoops with the FAA. Someone please straighten me out.
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What sort of hoops are you imagining?
 
I'd work for a successful school as a CFI for a little bit first.
 
Thanks for the input everyone!

I have decided that I am not going to go through with it; at least for now. I am going to get CFI then work for a flight school for 6-12 months then decide once I have instructing experience.

Once again, thank you for all the input. If I don't do this a year from now, I hope this thread and numbers and charts I developed can help someone else creating a flight school.
 
SkyDog58 said:
What sort of hoops are you imagining?
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I think the only hoop is the way scheduling is handled when the aircraft owner is the CFI. Anyway it's easy enough to put the plane in and LLC and avoid any problems. Of course ya gotta plan ahead a little and put it in the LLC when ya buy it. The OP said the plane would have a co-owner so it shouldn't be a problem.
 
Clark1961 said:
I think the only hoop is the way scheduling is handled when the aircraft owner is the CFI. Anyway it's easy enough to put the plane in and LLC and avoid any problems. Of course ya gotta plan ahead a little and put it in the LLC when ya buy it. The OP said the plane would have a co-owner so it shouldn't be a problem.
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But that really doesn't amount to a bunch of hoops with the FAA.
 
In addition to the insurance, etc, the airport may require a business license and what's known as "minimum standards". You need to find a couple lawyers, one for contracts and another who specializes in aviation.
 
So, you're going to be majoring in Computer Science. As senior faculty in the CS dept of a major Colorado university, for every credit hour you're registered for, you should be spending at least 3 hours outside of class. Do the math.
15 hour load + 45 hours outside of class = 60 hours.
So, how are you going to find the time to provide quality flight teaching? I've got my license and an airplane, and I'm happy to get 10 hrs a MONTH of flying!
 
forseth11 said:
True. Its cool how you went to school and instructed. I accounted for having enough time to do homework and projects. I also have two years of real world programming experience already, so I think some of the computer science classes will be a little easier.
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I currently have 3 students with "real world experience" and they keep being astonished at how much they don't know.

So - can you explain the advantages & disadvantages of quicksort over mergesort? What applications are best suited to hashtables? When, in an operating system, how & when do you adjust the priority queues? In a database system, what criteria would you use to reorganize the system? Which is the best indexing system for that DB - hash or B*trees? Can you explain the 7 layers of networks? Can you describe the headers on each of those layers so when you get hit by a DDOS, you can got hunting and find the culprits? How are you on normalizing a non-relational database system?

Understand that Computer Science is not learning to program. You can get that at a bootcamp or DIY. CS is a science with theory, just as rigorous as physics, chem, upper division math (calc 1-4) and programming is how we conduct experiments.

I'm not trying to dissuade you from a flight school, but understand the time-commitment for a CS degree.

I agree, but I am in a position where I can get a 150 which I have 180 hours in this specific one (which reduces insurance since my age hurts it). Also, I can get the 150 for $15,000, but a 172 would cost more around 30-45k, and I can't afford that. If this works out, I plan on getting a loan to buy a 172 to add on to this.
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