Although I don't have any personal experience with Ari Ben, I personally would not recommend it. I drove down to Ari Ben/Aviator College a year ago to check it out. At that time I had about 150 hours was looking into finishing my Commercial & multi and CFI/II/MEI. When i was on the tour of their facility the lady that was guiding me walked me by a hangar, and told me that they were keeping the planes inside away from the weather. (what weather haha?). Anyways I counted 8 (out of a total of 15) of their duchesses inside with cowlings pulled off, on jacks, etc. Obviously they weren't being hangared to keep them out of the weather, they were in maintenance. After seeing that, and a few other inconsistencies this lady told me, I have no idea what was the truth and what was fiction. She tried to sell me a multi time building block of 50 hours, saying that they would guarantee me a flight instructor job if and only if I had I did the time building. Btw, this was at a time when hiring in the industry was at a complete standstill and I'm not sure how any job guarantee could be credible, along with the fact that I would have to put down $6000+ to buy time, essentially buying the job (if there really was a job for me in the end).

After the 'tour' was concluded I asked her if I could talk to some flight instructors about the program. Then she told me that everyone was up flying. But meanwhile I saw a group of students and instructors smoking outside and she ushered me past them as if she didn't want me asking them any questions.

After this, I had a friend go there to finish his commercial, multi and CFI's and he confirmed my suspicion about maintenance. He said it wasn't unusual for half or more of their planes to be down at one time. He said the planes he flew had an unusual amount of maintenance issues and he felt that planes were returned to service before they were fixed properly. When he started he was told that finishing commercial, multi and CFI would take 90 days (and they would include 3 months of housing), but it took him 8 months or so and he attributed this to planes being down and having issues getting into ground school classes. He said having to pay for the remaining months housing added a lot to his total bill. He also fell for the 'guaranteed job' and after dropping a chunk of money for time building he told me he was on a very long wait-list for a job. After waiting months, he ended up finding employment elsewhere before his name worked its way up the list.