Zakariaelanabi

Hello Pilots,

I need your advice, please!

I decided to enroll in the online BS in Aeronautics with Liberty university while doing my training in one of the affiliate schools.

I live in Chicago but I decided to move to Florida or Texas to finish my training ASAP. I am not sure which school is the best.

Please find below the list of schools in both Florida and Texas and let me know which one is the best since I will need to start with my PPL and get my MEI rating too to build my hours for my Airline pilot goal.

Texas:

Anson Aviation
Flying Tigers Flight School
Pilots Choice Aviation
Sky Safety
Skyline Aviation, Inc
Texas Aviation Academy, LLC
US Aviation Academy
US Sport Flight Academy

Florida:

Aircraft Management Services
Cirrus Aviation
CTI Professional Flight Training
Ocala Aviation Services
Palm Beach Flight Training
Paragon Flight Training
Phoenix East Aviation
Platinum Aviation
Sterling Flight Training
SunState Aviation
Treasure Coast Flight Training
University Air Center
Wayman Flight Training (Opa Locka)
Wayman Flight Training (Pembroke Pines)

Thank you,

Stoked27

Whichever specific school someone recommends should be taken with a grain of salt since not many will have a fair assessment of all these. You might find a cheerleader or a hater for one particular school which is going to be heavily biased on their situation and QOL/specific goals that they were chasing. You should do some heavy analytical research on your own for your goals.

Are you using your GI Bill? Assuming money is somewhat of a factor since it is for most people, a broad recommendation that I’ll offer is to research each school’s airplane/instructor hourly cost.

Here’s how Liberty works:
1. You (or the VA for your GI Bill) pays Liberty at the start of the semester, including the flight rating lab fee
2. Liberty sends the lab fee to your flight affiliate school
3. The flight affiliate should be charging you pre-paid rates (if they offer any)
a. Once you use up your allocated funds, any additional training to complete the course or rating is out of your pocket
b. *Some expenses like the examiner fee can’t be used in the lab fee, but that’s not what I’m leading into…

What I’m getting at is Liberty doesn’t mandate the hourly rates that flight schools charge, but the schools should obviously be able to get you completed in your course based on the Part 141 outline using the allowable mixture of Aircraft and Simulator (depending on what level sim the school has, a higher percentage of sim time can be used). This creates a huge advantage for the businesses to raise their prices and force you into the simulator as much as possible where they have a higher profit margin. If you were paying out of pocket you might go to their competitor down the street that charges much less (oh wait, you can’t go down the street to save money since they’re the flight affiliate you signed up with for the semester). Gotcha, now the flight schools within Liberty have a reason to charge much more because they have more students who aren’t price sensitive.

You might be faced with the following for your Instrument Rating (example):

School A Course Plan:
21 hours of aircraft time (at a higher aircraft cost)
14 hours of sim time
35 hours dual received (at a higher cost)
Result: 100% of your lab fee is consumed

School B Course Plan:
30 hours of aircraft time (at a lower aircraft cost)
5 hours of sim time
35 hours dual received (at a lower cost)
Result: 100% of your lab fee is consumed

Then any remedial training or aircraft costs for the checkride will likely be out of pocket as well. Going with the lower cost will afford you greater potential of extra training within the lab fee if necessary. Sometimes higher cost might mean better equipped or maintained planes, but not always so do your research.

Each school will get you through the flight ratings, but you will walk away with more flight hours logged in a real airplane with some schools (especially during your Commercial when there are many solo flights). If you have a goal of building flight hours or prefer to train in the actual plane, maybe this is something to consider in your research. Over the course of your entire degree this could amount to a few months less of flight instructing/time-building to get you to your R-ATP 1,000 hours.