Academy of Aviation

Investing In Our Students

How Academy of Aviation is devoted to our Flight Students and graduates.


The AOA Difference

How are we different and why can we keep our costs down? As a consumer, the biggest question I ask before a major purchase is “why?” You should ask this question too.

This is a blog on the Academy of Aviation website, so I am going to give you a few insights that may help you decide to choose “us over them.”

You, the student, create the foundation of this school. We got into this because of our love for aviation, but that foundation cannot be strong if we didn't feel so unequivocally steadfast about your progress. Your attitude toward learning to fly will dictate your development and achievement as a student.

Academy of Aviation is the result of the founder’s innovation, quality, and personal attention to his students' needs. As a freelance instructor, 12-hour days were the norm. Picking up students who couldn’t get to the airport and driving them home again after the lesson was standard operating procedure. His drive to be in the air not only helped him accrue impressive flight times, but it helped ignite passion in others, keep the passion alive, and give those with limitations the opportunity to fuel their own passion.

Academy of Aviation donesn't offer things that you’ll already receive after graduation. Some schools promote an Airline Transport Pilot Certification Training Program (ATCP or FAA-Approved 14 CFR Part 142 Airline Training) as a “perk” to their program. But, traditionally, this exact training is provided by the airline you are hired by as a First Officer. Therefore, something that is part of your onboard training with any typical regional airline isn't advertised to look like one of our "perks".

Ask: Your Guaranteed Flight School CFI Job

Upon completing your Flight Instructor Ratings, will you be working in a call center or other positions, and not flying with students? The response you receive when asking this question is crucial to your Flight School comparison. Can you be a Flight Instructor at the campus you trained at (and live closest to) or is their Flight Instructor position based on a campus-by-campus need, uprooting you across the nation if they need to?

Ask: After You Log 1500

What happens to you if you've been working as a Flight Instructor and log 1500 hours? Could you stay and continue instructing, or will your school push you out to make room for newer CFI graduates? Your experience should be valuable as a CFI with 1500 hours under your belt, and you should be viewed as a valuable asset to a Flight School if you want to continue instructing.

Academy of Aviation always welcomes seasoned instructor personnel to stay on and join us.



Your Personal Progress

On a personal level, we insist that you become the best pilot you can be because we stand by our students and the entire aviation ecosystem. As a smaller school, we know each and every one of you. You will not get into an airplane until we are sure that you know your stuff. You also will not fly a plane if we feel that you cannot, and that will save you thousands of dollars of wasted money if you aren’t cut out to be a pilot. You will have intense classroom instruction, and you will know the foundations of flight and the systems of your training aircraft.

With our fixed-cost program, we do not benefit from having to provide you with more and more training at an hourly rate—a common tactic found elsewhere. Therefore, we make sure that you are fit to fly before you ever step into an airplane.

Ask about the fine print: With a leading Flight School, you must finish in nine months and be available seven days per week, or you'll have to fall under a more flexible course track, which is an additional $15,000 added onto their price. Academy of Aviation does not "up" the price simply because you need flexibility in your schedule.

Sensibly Speaking About Money

A note about “fixed-cost” training, which I will re-state from our career page: Academy of Aviation provides up-front, fixed-cost pricing in a way that differentiates us from most other flight schools and academies. We design flight training programs with enough flight time for the vast majority of students to be successful, and not based on unrealistic minimum flight time requirements.

It does happen. You may require extra training above and beyond what's included in your curriculum, and if so, we will first try to reallocate flight time from other parts of the syllabus, changing the type of aircraft you fly for certain portions of training, and implementing simulator time-- all before offering you extra flight training at an additional cost. In other words, we want you to succeed at the price you signed up for.



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