Flight Schools In NYC Area??

turpentyine

New Member
Hello, everyone. I am a 19 yr old college student that lives in NYC and I want to start what will hopefully become a career as an airline pilot by taking my private lessons. I am wondering if any of you fine people know of any GOOD flight schools in the NYC area? Anything you could recommend or maybe some websites that have ratings of flight schools would be great. Thnx a lot!!!
 
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Hello, everyone. I am a 19 yr old college student that lives in NYC and I want to start what will hopefully become a career as an airline pilot by taking my private lessons. I am wondering if any of you fine people know of any GOOD flight schools in the NYC area? Anything you could recommend or maybe some websites that have ratings of flight schools would be great. Thnx a lot!!!

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I don't have a clue about your area, but I hope you have more luck getting hold of someone to talk to at a local school than I have had. I have sent four e-mails to a school in Pittsburgh and I got one lackluster response from them. The only responses I have gotten were from the so-called "pilot factories" in Florida and Arizona. They will do anything to enroll you in their school though. Not saying they don't have good programs, but with a price around 60,000 dollars on average (from what I have seen) kind of makes me want to turn away. How can you start paying back that kind of loan six months after employment if the only thing you can expect to be is a CFI? The only thing I can say is if you want to get a hold of someone at a local flight school, CALL THEM! don't e-mail. For good web sites on Aviation Schools try using a search engine such as Yahoo or Excite. Hey, it's how I found this web site.

Anyway
GOOK LUCK
 
Im not sure where you live in NYC but I fly out of or when I took lessons I flew out of Framindale. I flew with select aviation. Its a good school but will cost you a lot. 152 is 69 and hour and 42 for an instructor. Plus .2 an hour for ground per flight and 2.50 per landing. They only have one 152 so when you have your cross country flights it gets kinda hard to get the plane for 3-4 hours. They have a nice fleet of almost brand new 172's. they go for 98 an hour. I think you have to pay 100 or 200 dollars for a year of insurance. Its a good school but one thing I didnt like about it was that the ground was done with a CBI kit. Thats a self study learn at your house kit. That didnt work to well for me, but thats just me.

Another school is BK aviation. Its cheaper. 30 for instruction. and somewhere between 66-69 an hour for the plane. They have a package deal. I thinks its 5,200 for 50 hours of flight time, ground school and the supplies, headphones, charts etc..
there website is bkaviation.com
 
Yes thats exactly where I went. I checked both of those schools out, and a few others that were there. Ye the fact that Select Aviation gives you a computer kit for ground school instead of a class room does not sit too well with me either. Now I have hard time deciding which one of all those schools to pick, thats why I posted here in hopes of someone clearing things up for me.
 
I have never flown with BK. But if I had to do it all over again I would have went with BK. At select they wanted me to do 6 xc flights. I went out to american flyers in ISLP. They said that select was taking me for a ride with the xc flights
 
I did a lot of research on this in June when I came home from school to finish up my PPL. I finally ended up training at AirFleet at Linden where I am now. I checked out pretty much all the schools at Farmingdale, ISLIP, Caldwell, Morristown and Linden. I can give you a run down of what I saw:

ISLIP. Pretty far out on the Island if you are coming from the city (especially with LIE traffic). There were two schools worth checking out there. Mid-Island had a large fleet and seeemed to be a well run place. They have another branch in Brookhaven which is about 20 miles east of ISLIP. Maintenance was good (I always check the ac logs when checking out a school). The planes were well kept. The prices for the planes were decent but there was something like a $250 training fee. FOR WHAT???? Fees like these are pointless in my eyes especially on top of already inflated NY prices. No thank you, I will look elsewhere!!!!
I also checked out American Flyers. This school has branches all over the place, even in Morristown if you live in Jersey. It is well run and very expensive. I did not get the chance to speak with any instructors or students as they will send a salesmen instead of a CFI to get you to sign up. The planes and the program seemed top notch though.

Farmingdale. I checked out almost all the schools on the field and there are many. I wasn't too impressed by any which was partly due to the ridiculously high cost of training on that field. Select seemed to be ok, they had all new planes and training was discouraged in the 152 since no instructors wanted to teach in it. Another JC user told me that they reallly shaft you moneywise by making you take extra flights that you don't need and charging bs fees and the like.
BK and Caleum seemed to be pretty run down. The CFI that gave me the tour of BK had absolutely no faith in the company although their Warriors did rent for $70 (which was the cheapest on the field). I had been warned by different people to avoid these places
Aviate Right is a joke. The guy running the place lied about everything, he claimed planes on the field belonged to the school when they clearly weren't. AVOID at all costs!!!
LIFT- I was impressed by this school's curriculum, maintenace and instructors, but the price was extremely steep (even for FRG).
Nassau Flyers- I heard good things about this school, they have a large fleet and have good maintenance, but there are so many fees here and there that it was clearly not worth it.
I may have checked out more, but this is all that comes to mind at FRG. I was not particularly impressed by any school so I took my quest across the river to Jersey.

Linden: Air Fleet was the only school on the field, it is small, uncontrolled and right below the Newark Class B. Air Fleet has a few instructors here, but its big base is at Teterboro. I chose to train here becauseat Teterboro you *WILL* spend a half hour on the ground waiting to take off and spend $6.50 on a landing fee. The planes seem to be in good shape (I checked out the maintenace at TEB and was impressed). I also found a more than decent instructor. The airport is on Rt1/9 a few miles off of the Goethals.

Caldwell (Essex Co.): Is not that far off of the GWB. They have a bunch of schools on the field.
Caldwell Flight- very good prices, but I heard some sketchy things about maintenace there. Was not too impressed by the facilities or the instructors.
Century Flight- run by a retired airline pilot/DE, this school is no BS. The planes are immaculate and the place is very organized. I took an intro flight with one of the instructors and was not too happy with him. I DEFINITELY would have gone here if I had not found a better instructor at Linden. Eagle went here for some training and recomended the place to me. I spoke to a few students there who spoke very highly of the place.
There is another FBO on the field (Air Dan or something like that). Nobody was there when I visited so I can not give an opinion. The prices seemed decent though.

Monmouth County is a little farther west of Caldwell. Thre were two schools there. American Flyers (see above) and Certified. Certified Flyers had fair prices and seemed to be a decent place.

I hope this helps, because it is a mess out there and I spent a lot of time researching all these schools. I would recommend Century at Morristown or Airfleet at Linden. Check out these places and see where you feel comfortable. But most importantly, prepareto pay. I did most of my training at OSU in Columbus and I pay about 1.5 times what I am used to for the same service. Remember to leave money for crossing the bridges too ( this is about $15 per trip plus gas for me).
If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me.
Good Luck !!!

Steven
 
WOW. Thanks you so much you cant imagine how muchthis helps.
The way I see it even though LI schools charge more, and if I go to one of the schools that are off the island I'll end up spending the money that I saved on the stupid bridges and whatever other highway talls I might encounter while trying to get out of NYC.
 
Ok I know this is another old thread, though Im sure some aspiring pilots in the NY area would like to be updated on the schools around here.

Islip: NO changes there. Amercian Flyers is still very expensive and a student will fly with multiple CFI's. Mid-Island seems like a pretty stable operation...large fleet, good mx. The pitfalls, expensive aircraft and high club rates.

Farmingdale: Lots to say about this place. Schools here come and go like the wind. BK is gone and so is Select. There are new schools that have opened on the field. There's LF Academy that has 3 or 4 Archers very well equipped and two Senecas. The pitfal, all the CFIs are freelance and there isn't much support from the office when you need something like oil as the office is only open on a part time basis. I think the owner has a second job as well so office support for the school is limited at best. Then there is Pilot's Haven Academy of Aviation. These guys I've started flying with. They have a diverse fleet ranging from Cessna 150's to a G1000 equipped 172SP to a Garmin 530 equipped piper seminole. They are taking a risk offering guaranteed courses for one price but until that doesn't work out for them it's a good deal for the student. Other schools already discussed on the field are pretty much the same as stated previously.

If anyone wants more info on other schools here email me.

Will
shaw0ed@erau.edu
 
I realize it's a 2 years old thread, but I wonder if anyone can recommend a good flight school in NYC area? I'm trying to get my PPL.

I'm looking at schools in Farmningdale and Terterboro area, anyone got a good recommendation?

Did anyone fly with "Pilot's Haven Academy of Aviation" in Farmingdale? I'm thinking of Pilot Haven's Private Pilot License Guarantee program, but the website didn't provide any details about the program (like what aircraft will be used, what items are included, etc). Are their aircrafts well maintained, is the CFI doing a good job? Is there a particular CFI that is recommended?

For "Glass Cockpit Aviation" in Farmingdale, their website looks very decent and their fleet looks new, but the price seems really expensive. Anyone has comment on this school?

I'm very gateful for your time and assistance!
 
I also live in nyc and do flight training. If you haven't made up your mind yet I would suggest flying at Islip over Farmingdale any time. There is so much student training at Farmingdale that you often find yourself waiting in line 3rd or 4th for touch and gos and wasting gas and money. The only traffic you compete with really at Islip are Southwest 737's that take off and land about every 20 minutes. If you can find the time to fly in Islip early any weekday morning (who can), its usually nice and not too busy. Although it is far out on the Island, it is a hour and a half LIRR train ride which isn't too bad and yu don't have to drive. The flight school I'd recommend is American Airman, which is about a 15 minute walk from the Ronkonkama train station, or you can get a train station parking permit from the town, park your car at the station, and drive to and from the flight school. It's a well run operation with good instructors and there are never any hidden fees. If you'd like more info let me know.
 
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