Pricing
Every number, in one place.
Our hourly rates, worked out line by line to a total for each rating we teach, plus the costs that are real and aren't ours.
Start here
Two ways in, and both are $199.
A discovery flight is a real lesson, not a ride. You fly the airplane from the pilot's seat, your FAA Certified Flight Instructor is beside you, and the time goes in a logbook whether or not you ever come back.
$199
Discovery flight. About two hours from start to finish. No medical certificate required, and the minimum age is eight.
$199
Gift certificate. No expiration, transferable to anyone, and refundable at any time.
Neither one needs an application, a deposit, or an account. You buy it the way you’d buy anything else, and we take it from there.
The rates
The rates. Everything else on this page is arithmetic.
$185/hr
The airplane, wet. Fuel is included, so what you pay doesn’t move when fuel does.
$60/hr
Your instructor, in the airplane, in a classroom, or on a Zoom call, at the same rate.
$120/hr
Time building, all in. That is the airplane and the instructor together, not the airplane alone.
How the clock works. Both the airplane and your instructor bill to the tenth of an hour. Airplane time is Hobbs time. It starts when the engine does, so taxi and runup are included. Instructor time is on the clock: a debrief that runs twenty minutes is three tenths, not a full hour.
Time building is not a rental. Our insurance does not permit anyone to fly this airplane without one of our instructors aboard. So on a time-building flight you are flying and the hours are yours, and an instructor is in the right seat. You will need a private certificate to book it.
Flying your own airplane. We’ll teach in it. The instructor rate is $75 an hour for time in your airplane, ground instruction stays at $60, and there is no aircraft charge from us, because the airplane isn’t ours.
Before the first lesson your instructor will go through your maintenance records. That review is not a formality, and the decision about whether to fly your airplane rests with the instructor, not with us or with you. Sometimes the answer is not this airplane. Better to hear that before you have built a plan around it.
Worked out
The whole build-up, line by line.
These are estimates, not quotes and not caps. Fly often and you’ll finish under them. Leave three weeks between lessons and you’ll pay to re-learn what you already knew.
Instrument rating
Assumes a private certificate
Hours in the airplane
$185 × 48
$8,880
Instructor, aboard for those hours
$60 × 48
$2,880
One-on-one ground instruction
$60 × 25
$1,500
Estimated total
$13,260
The rating needs fifty hours of cross-country as pilot in command, and most of it gets built inside those forty-eight. You are pilot in command on your own training flights, so a lesson that lands somewhere far enough away counts twice. If you’re arriving well short of fifty, say so at the first conversation and we’ll look at your logbook together.
Commercial certificate
Assumes a private certificate and about seventy hours
Ground instruction
$60 × 20
$1,200
Airplane, flying with an instructor
$185 × 50
$9,250
Instructor, aboard for those hours
$60 × 50
$3,000
Time building
$120 × 130
$15,600
Estimated total
$29,050
A commercial certificate requires 250 hours of total time. This assumes you arrive holding a private certificate with about seventy of them, which is where most fresh private pilots are. Bring more and the number comes down. Time building is the largest line in it, and every hour already in your logbook is one you are not buying from us.
High-performance endorsement
No total, on purpose
There is no fixed ground block, since briefings fold into the flight days, and most pilots finish in five to ten flight hours, with the spread coming down to how recently you have flown. Ten hours costs twice what five does, so any total printed here would be arithmetic pretending to be a quote.
You pay the airplane rate and the instructor rate for the hours you actually use. Call and we will talk through where you are likely to land.
Not ours
Three real costs that never come to us.
They belong on your budget. They just don’t belong on our invoice, and you should hear about them here rather than at the end.
The examiner
Paid to them, typically in cash
Every certificate and rating ends with a practical test given by an FAA-designated examiner. The examiner sets that fee and you pay it directly. We don’t print a figure because it isn’t ours to set. Ask early, and plan on cash.
The knowledge test
Paid at the testing center
You will sit an FAA written knowledge test before the checkride. The testing center collects its fee when you sit down. We do not mark it up, because it never passes through us.
The online course
Bought direct from the provider
A professionally produced video course you work through at your own pace. You buy it from the provider, not from us. Your instructor is registered inside it and can see where you are before a session instead of asking.
Everything you actually need in the airplane is already in it, including headsets. Bring your own if you have a pair you like. Most pilots eventually do.
Where we pick up
We teach after the private certificate.
Instrument, commercial, the high-performance endorsement, and time building. That is what is on this page, and that is what we do.
If you are starting from the beginning, or you took a discovery flight and want to keep going, call anyway. We will point you toward a good school for the private certificate, and we will be here for what comes after it.
How it starts
One deposit, and a rate that doesn’t move.
An application and a $500 deposit. The application is where we collect the identity documents the TSA requires before training begins. A federal requirement, not ours, and worth starting early. The deposit goes into your own account and is drawn down as you fly. We ask you to keep that balance positive.
Whatever is left when you finish comes back to you. It was never our money. If you stop training, the same is true. The unspent balance is yours.
Your rate is your rate. If our prices change, they change for pilots starting something new. They never change for someone already in training. You finish at the price you started at, and if you come back later for the next certificate, you will know the new rate before you begin, not after.
There is nothing to finance. You are not buying a package, and you never owe us money. You keep a balance and fly against it, so the pace is yours to set. The deposit applies to training and to time building, not to a discovery flight or a gift certificate, which you buy outright with nothing to open.
Questions
The ones we get asked about money.
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For instrument or commercial training you need at least a third class medical, or BasicMed, which works for both, including the checkride itself. What BasicMed will not do is let you get paid once you hold the commercial certificate. That takes a second class. A discovery flight needs no medical at all.
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No. Headsets are in the airplane. Bring your own if you have a pair you like. Most pilots eventually do.
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No. Nothing on this page requires one. Most pilots at this stage already fly with one, and the work goes easier if you do, but it is not something we ask you to buy.
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Yes. The instructor rate is $75 an hour for time in your airplane and $60 for ground instruction, and there is no aircraft charge from us. Before the first lesson your instructor goes through your maintenance records. That review is not a formality, and the decision about whether to fly your airplane rests with the instructor. Sometimes the answer is not this airplane.
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Nothing happens to yours. Price changes apply to pilots starting something new, never to someone already in training. If you come back later for the next certificate, you will know the new rate before you begin.
Estimates on this page assume you hold a private certificate and are reasonably current. Nothing here is a quote. For a real one, call 844-FLY-OCMD or email Fly@EasternShoreFlightCo.com and bring your logbook to the conversation.
Start with your logbook.
Call or email and we will work through what you actually need, including if the honest answer is that you should do something else first. The conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.