What is NOT included in a flight training package price
The Smart Path package price covers most of what you will spend — but not all of it. The four costs that sit outside a fixed flight training package, and what to budget for each.
By Watch Me Fly Academy
A fixed package price is only useful if you know where its edges are. Ours is $12,845 for the Private Pilot certificate — the full figure and every package is on the pricing page, which is the number to trust — but what students actually want before they commit is the other list: the costs that sit outside a flight training package, at any school.
Here is both, in order.
What the $12,845 covers
The package includes 60 hours of training — 25 hours in the glass-cockpit Cessna A150M Aerobat, 20 hours in the glass-cockpit Cessna 172M, and 15 hours in Dexter, our FAA-approved Redbird LD simulator — plus 30 hours of instructor time. On top of the flying it carries the Sporty’s Learn to Fly course, FAA written-test preparation and the endorsement to sit it, spin awareness, spin recovery and upset recovery training, a final mock checkride, and the aircraft rental for the FAA practical test itself.
That last item is the one most price comparisons quietly leave out. On the day of a checkride the airplane has to be rented for the examiner’s flight, and at a lot of schools that is a separate invoice.
What sits outside the price
Four things are genuinely not included, and they are the same four everywhere:
- the FAA medical certificate, issued by an Aviation Medical Examiner
- the FAA knowledge-test fee
- the examiner’s fee for the practical test
- personal equipment, principally a headset
What happens if 60 hours is not enough
Every student learns at a different pace, and going past the included hours is normal rather than a failure. Training beyond the package continues at discounted Smart Path member rates — $192/hr wet in the Cessna 172, $165/hr wet in the Aerobat, $80/hr in the Redbird — rather than at the price of a second package.
The single biggest lever on the final number is how often a student flies. Consistent training means less time relearning skills, and flight operations here run 6am to 10pm seven days a week with aircraft and instructor availability deliberately kept ahead of demand.
The next step
Most people start with a $215 Enhanced Discovery Flight — one flight, one instructor, the controls in your hands, and the time logged toward a certificate if you continue. Book a Discovery Flight, or call 737-256-7305 and we will walk through the package before anything is committed. Package prices are taken from our published Smart Path brochure and are subject to change, so it is always worth confirming the current figure on the phone.
