BEST FLIGHT SCHOOL in PHOENIX
 

hey everyone,

i am moving to phoenix az next month, i wanna continue flight training there. what are some of the best schools in your opinion. take into account cost, quality and availability of aircraft and instructors.

thanks

I'm loving Chandler Air Service (www.aerobatics.com). They have a nice sized fleet, everyone is really nice, and the price is decent.

I haven't had any problems with aircraft or instructor availability.

I also looked into Falcon Executive Aviation, and it seemed like a decent place to go also. The reason I didn't choose there was because it wasn't as "family-like" as I hoped, and the airport is really busy. The instructor I talked to said that they have an average 30 minute wait at 6:30am in the run up area!

On the western side of Phoenix, there is Glendale Aviation, which I looked into and was told that they would have trouble fitting me in because of lack of instructors. That was a few months ago though, so things may have changed.

I'm not sure what's all available at Deer Valley, Gateway, Steller, or any of the other airports here. I also have no info on academies like ATP or Pan Am, Sabena, etc.

Drop me a PM if you have any questions!

Try Westwind at Deervalley. I have flown (and worked with) lots of guys that went to school there and then worked the charter side. They all had positive things to say about the school.

It all depends on where you live in Phoenix. Driving across Phoenix to get to one airport or the other can COST HUGE amount of time and money.

Chandler airservice is great. SOme of thier instructors are a pain in the a$$ and think because they have 10 hours flying aerobatics that they know everything. The Owner is a Jerk flat out. But still a great school.

I would also suggest Pan Am and ATP. ATP would be my first choice. This is just my 6 years of experience flying in the phoenix area. If you give me your location I can get more specfic. PM me.

I'm biased since I teach here but I like ATP. I did the Private and Career programs in PHX and loved it.

chandler air service
 

any more info on Chandler Air Service would be greatly appreciated. Certain instructors perhaps. What their gimmick is and hows the training?

I would avoid Chandler Air Service. I used to instruct at IWA about 3.5 years ago and our school sponsored a safety meeting and invited all flight schools in the area. Most of them sent at least one representative. We discussed safety issues at the local airports and frequency congestion as well as what we could do to be safer pilots. Chandler Air Service was one of the only schools who refused to attend and they are one of the closest schools to our airport.
I had a couple students come from there and they talked about the lack of safety and standardization and how the disregard for checklists really bothered them.

I am an instructor at Chandler Air Service and have been for about 15 months. We specialize in old school stick and rudder. We have about 30 planes give or take a few. We do every level of instruction and specialize in tailwheel and aerobatics. We will teach you how to fly and to truly understand what you are doing. We will not cheat you out of your money and take pride in being one of the lowest priced, larger flight schools in the valley.

We are not an academy and we will not teach you how to fly a warrior like an airbus. You will fly the airplane that you are in and be very proficient at it. Most of our instructors are older (30's and up) career changers and have flown for years, not months. Amazingly our biggest critics are people whom have never flown with us.

You can learn an RJ checklist when you get to the airlines (they don't care where you went trust me). Most of our instructors are tailwheel and aerobatics guys and that style of flying filters down to primary training as well. As in you know what a rudder is for.

Come out and see us and see for yourself. My name is Justin by the way. Give us a call. Also we recommend you check out all the flight schools in the area to make an informed decision.

Glendale Aviation was good once, but they went out of business several months back. Phoenix is huge, so it helps to live in the area that you train. I drive about 65 miles round trip a day from Scottsdale to Chandler and I don't recommend that (gas being like it is).

Look foward to hearing from you.

480-963-6420
www.aerobatics.com

Go to different flight schools and talk to several instructors. The school doesn't matter as much as the instructor. I would find an instructor you really like with a lot of experience and make a deal. I went to several different locations in PHX and had good and bad everywhere. Chandler Air Service is a perfect example of the instructor means everything. I did some flying there three of four years ago and I saw good and bad. The chief instructor Kurt was awesome and probably one of the best instructors I have ever had, but he is busy and I would fly with others and they were nothing special. Also when they say they are old school stick and rudder pilots its because there aircraft are really really OLD. It all depends on what you want.

Has anyone had any experience with Airsafety Academy in Glendale? My wife is looking to get her CFI and we're looking for a reliable school that isn't outrageously expensive. We looked at ATP but apparently they no longer offer the initial CFI unless you get the CFII and MEI as well. Also, we're living in Surprise right now and IWA is too far away. Any other suggestions for the west side would be great.

I'm on the west side, too.....and I realize that your options are limited, but I would avoid Air Safety at all costs.

The drive to Deer Valley isn't that bad.

...and I forgot to mention that the best CFI job in the "Valley of the Sun" is Oxford Aviation Academy......hands down.

But you need at least 500TT, 200 dual given, and it's getting to the point that you might need an internal reference.

Celticpilot,

can you pm me. i need to ask you a few things about ChandlerAir Service

thanks

In the past few days I've bump into at least 5 guys that came from Air Safety, so yeah I'd think that's not a good thing for Air Safety - I fly out of Deer Valley by the way -

Check out Westwind @ DVT. I have heard good things.

Westwind is a good school for the most part, the only thing I don't like about it is the

"With the current shortage of pilots in the US Airline industry, there has never been a better time to pursue a career as an airline pilot. Our graduates are being hired with as little as 250 hours by airlines around the country"

that they advertise on their website. I think it's a little misleading.

I would love to send you a PM but it is not letting me. User error I am sure. My email is [email protected].

mail sent!

Which schools(if any) are currently hiring CFIs in the phoenix area? Am I competitive with only a CFI? I have 200+ dual given. Sent out a few emails and didn't get any responses.

Thanks for the help

Ive flown out of Chandler Air several times. The instructor I went with was a younger guy, but really cool, definitely emphasized rudder skills more than any other instructor I have ever flown with. Ive researched a lot of other schools in the PHX area, and Chandler Air has the cheaper rates by far! Not all of their aircraft have fancy G1000s, but if you are just building time, who really cares? On the flip side, a buddy of mine had a bad experience with a really negative instructor their a couple of years back, and I have another friend who was supposedly denied the ability to rent one of their Bonanzas even though he has atleast 250tt, with a lot of that in Bonanzas. He claimed it was because he is in training with Mesa Pilot Development and the owner of Chandler Air has a disdain for their pilots. Dont really know the whole story about that one, but I was secretly smiling cuz I dont really like Mesa Pilot Development either( as far as I can tell, it's an overpriced, overated, training deal for a POS airline.)

My advice is to try out Chandler Air, but just make sure that you ask around and get a good instructor.

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.

I highly recommend Chandler Air Service too. Did my PPL and instrument with them. Just started my commercial with them as well. Great instructors, well kept airplanes and a love of flying there.

ATP is a great school out in Gateway Airport (KIWA)
I got my private through them and wouldn't hurt to looking into but keep in mind that its a FAST paced program and isn't for a lot people.

There is also Sawyer Aviation out in scottsdale (KSDL)
Instructors are great and go out of their way to help you out and understand.
I got my instrument through them also have a great maintenance program as well.

Fleet consists of a
Diamond Twinstar DA42 (Turbo Diesel G1000)
182 (G1000)
172 (G1000)
172 (Standard fuel injected)
A newly acquired skycatcher

But I also would recommend you try looking at
"Westwind School of Aeronautics" in KDVT
I got my commercial single and multi engine through them.
The instructors are great, maintenance personnel are also helpful and cool to talk to and they can help point out how the systems work
Fleet is also great, they have g1000 172's, standard 6 pack 172, carb and fuel injected 172's, twins are PA-44 they have (4) of them.
I commuted from mesa to deer valley just to go there and took me 30 min tops.

I flew to all the local airports in PHX and the airspace is great to fly around, as far as chandler I also flew there and they have great gas prices for aircraft one of the lowest in the area all the time. Chandler airport also have a good tasty restaurant to eat at, and there is a pilot shop right across from them.

Hope this helps you out and this is just my .2 cents good luck!

I did my ATP rating at ATP IWA when I was at Luke AFB. Those guys are squared away and got me through fast. I would recommend it.