I can also vouch for Chandler Air Service, and Justin(Celticpilot). Chandler Air Service is a great place to fly, they dont have fancy planes that some of the other schools have but they're cheap and are great for training. You actually learn what a VOR and Pilotage is, as oppose to following that magic magenta line to your destination. The instructors there are all awesome, Justin was my instructor for pretty much all of my commercial, I would highly recommend him or any of the guys out there, they actually care, they want you to understand everything, and they help you get to the point were the plane is a part of you. I dont fly there anymore (Parents want me to do the university route....) but I wish I did....
Hey Justin, its Anthony C.

What's up Anthony? Thanks for the kind words. All is going well and we are slammed. Hope college is going good for you.

On the Beech thing. We have certain requirements for it, but I believe it's like 250TT and at least a 2 hour check out. However, the owner has the right to determine if he is comfortable with a particular pilot or not. The Bo is a 1967 with a 265HP engine. It is a very nice plane, but the onlly Bo we have, so yeah, we are going to be picky at times.

All of our instructors here do care and have all been here for at least a year or more (though we will be hiring a couple of more in the next few months, but we already know whom we are hiring).

As far as the bad experience with the instructor thing. That one is probably not here anymore. But we do get passionate about quality instruction and it drives us nuts how crappy the quality of instruction is out there. Especially the larger schools. We are old school style of instruction and could care less if you want to be in a jet in 5 months. Whether you just getting a Private for recreation, or an Instrument, or you want to be a CFI or a bush pilot someday, you get treated the same. If you don't feel you were treated well, ask for a meeting with the Chief Pilot.

We have several GPS units (a mix of 430's, 300's and 155's), we have no 1000's though. We are the best price in town though. Come give us look and see for yourself.

And Anthony keep the sunny side up my friend. Take care and come give us a visit sometime.... Later

I stayed in Tempe for a while going to ASU for my degree, so I decided to get my commercial license at the same time. I flew out of Falcon Field with a small Flight School called Arizona Aviation. I built some hours there last November and did my Multi-commercial with this this July.

I would highly recommend them. They're pretty small, but they have good aircraft in excellent condition. A couple of C-150s, a few 172s that are in really good nick, a 182 with long range tanks and GPS, a Warrior, an Archer and an Apache. The prices are really low and the instructors are smart. The chief instructor's name is Mark Culbertson, and he's pretty good. I flew with him and a couple of others there and they were all very professional and very experienced.

I've flown at some big flight schools, like ATP, and at some little ones and this one was the best overall for quality and price. Falcon is a little out there, but it was well worth the drive for me. Good luck whatever you choose to do! And be careful of carb ice in Arizona, especially in winter. You wouldn't expect it, but it's happened to me more than once.

Sorry for digging up this old thread,

but, really want to know any flight school in Phoenix area hiring CFI at this point.........kind of desperate, thank you all.

I really doubt they are hiring, but Oxford out of Goodyear was one of the best places to instruct a few years ago. To give you an idea I made salary, 5 days a week, started around 0600 ended about 1200 most days, paid for me to go to their school in Oxford, England for 3 weeks, great benefits and the students were the best I have ever had.

wow~this is such a fast reply, hope my CFI career can start just as fast as your reply....haha

I heard good thing about Oxford, but it seems require pretty high TT and Dual given,
now i only have around 300 and ZERO dual......:(

thanX FlyingPirate

Hey, I have been planning on attending ATP PHX. I am graduating from college next month and am still debating on weather to go or not based on the current demand for pilots. I have been reading several blogs, and I am aware there is much written on weather to go or not to go since it requires alot of money when the argument is you can do the training for the fraction of the cost at an FBO. How hard is it to become employed as a CFI at ATP once your done with the program? Have guys who havn't been able to get a job with ATP as a CFI been able to get jobs elsewhere? Thanks for your time.

I realize this thread is REALLY old, but I found it on a search in google. My son just informed me he is interested in learning how to fly, and I want to find out about quality instruction at an affordable price. I live pretty close to the Chandler airport, but he could travel a bit around the valley as necessary. For all the experts out there, your opinion would be greatly appreciated. You can send me a PM if you would like. Thanks!

Active_heck - I started at the UND / CGCC campus at Williams gateway and it was a great program. You can transfer to UND afterwords, all courses are accepted and best of all, it's cheap. CGCC has great gen ed classes, and the flight training was awesome.

I also did the aerobatic course at chandler in the Great Lakes. They are great over there too, but more suited towards general aviation flying. So if you want to go airline, maybe look at the UND program.

Thanks for the info.