American Flyers Review (From 100+ Hours Training There)

I have received a lot (but not all) of my formal flight training from American Flyers in Addison, Texas (though they have several locations across the country). I have completed my private pilot’s license, my instrument (and follow-on IPCs or instrument proficiency checks), and commercial ground school there. That probably adds up to nearly 100 flight hours and hundreds of more hours in ground school. That training was through the span of 2007-2015, so I had different cohorts of instructors and leadership there. In other words, at this point I have a pretty good feel for the American Flyers training system.

Because I’ve logged over a hundred flight hours and several hundred hours in ground school at American Flyers, I wanted to share my honest and unbiased feedback of their training program. Granted I can only speak for the Addison (Dallas), Texas location but I’m sure it’s substantially similar in other areas.

I’m not being compensated from American Flyers for sharing my thoughts (which are mostly positive), and at the time of this writing they are not even aware of my website or of my writing. So this is purely my thoughts from a lot of training experience and a lot of money spent. Hope it helps you in some way!

Training in a Part 141 vs. 61 Program

First of all, American Flyers is a Part 141 flight school.

Part 141 schools have a more structured training regimen that must be approved by the FAA, and are also subject to periodic inspections as well as student volume and check ride pass percentages. As a result, they are allowed to graduate students with fewer requirements than Part 61 programs.

I’ve trained in 141 and 61 environments and there are pros and cons to each. As you read this review of the flight school, realize that you are reading about a 141 program. For many reasons you might decide that a Part 141 program is not what you are looking for, and that is important to decide from the start.

For more reading on this topic, see our article on Part 61 vs. 141 Flight Schools – Requirements and Differences.

American Flyers: The Good

You’ll see that I have mostly good feedback for American Flyers which is why I’ve gotten multiple ratings (and spent a lot of money) there. Here are the many things I liked about American Flyers:

Availability

They have a lot of airplanes in their fleet and a lot of instructors available to you. Most of the time I was able to tell the schedulers when I was available and they would have an airplane and instructor for me at that time. Obviously the weekends are sometimes more full but would usually schedule 3-4 lessons ahead of time so that I kept in rhythm. This also kept me accountable to not skip home-based learning because I knew I had another lesson in a few days.

One of my friends who also trained at American Flyers actually did his night flying requirement at about 3am because that was when he was available and American Flyers had enough instructors that one of them was willing to fly in the middle of the night. There is a benefit to a flight school in that you have broader availability than just using a one-off instructor. This has pros and cons but for me it was definitely more of a “pro” that they seemed to try to schedule around my free time.

3-Day Ground School

This was one of my favorite parts of American Flyers. They offer a 3-day ground school for each rating (private, instrument, and commercial… their CFI is a 30-day academy) that is Friday-Sunday 8am-5pm. I took all three ground schools and found them VERY helpful and very professionally presented.

American Flyers developed their own curriculum booklets that covers all of the required knowledge for each rating and you spend a weekend going through the whole thing, and at the end they give you the written endorsement you need to take your written exam. Those weekends were always pretty tiring (and sometimes overwhelming) but in general it was always really valuable and always prepared me for the written test.

I also found this really convenient because it was a focused time to work towards getting your written knocked out rather than self-studying and not being sure when you were ready to take it. Having it done in a weekend was something hugely valuable to me and gave me momentum in my training.

The class sizes were usually 8-12 people or so, and so there was enough space to be able to ask most questions you needed without slowing the class down.

The price (at the time I did it) was around $300 which for 24 class hours and the curriculum was an extremely fair price to me. I always did this weekend ground school at the beginning of my rating so that I already had the written test knocked out and I at least had a baseline understanding of the principles that would be covered in the rest of my flight training. Some people would do it in the middle or end of their training before the check ride but I always found value in doing ground school at the onset of my training.

On-Site Written Tests

American Flyers (at least in Addison) is also a registered testing facility for the written exam, so you don’t have to go find another testing center once you’re ready for the written. It’s not a huge deal but is convenient that you can take it right there and I always felt a little more comfortable because I was familiar with the space and it wasn’t some foreign testing facility. That seemed to reduce the pressure for me a bit.

Good Aircraft Maintenance

I never had any real maintenance issues in my 100 or so flight hours in American Flyers’ airplanes. I have heard stories of other folks having some light maintenance issues here or there but nothing major. Other flight schools in my area have been in the news lately for catastrophic and near-fatal maintenance issues in flight but I haven’t heard of anyone having that kind of problem with American Flyers.

They abide by their 100 hour inspections and while the airplanes are consistently dirty with bugs and whatnot the actual engine seemed to be in good shape and never gave me issues. If we had an issue or a question there was always a mechanic in the hangar who could answer our question or provide some input.

They Know the Examiners

TSince American Flyers graduates so many pilots through their program, they get to know the local examiners that will conduct your check ride and can usually give you some pretty detailed knowledge ahead of time as to what that examiner likes to ask. Granted that isn’t what would make or break my check ride but it always gave me a little more comfort knowing at least something about the examiner before they showed up.

Simulators

American Flyers definitely believes in using simulators wherever possible to save you money in your flight training. Especially in my instrument training I was able to save some money by simulating approaches logging time in the simulator (it counted as AATD or Advanced Aviation Training Device time). It’s nowhere near as fun as flying a real airplane but it can give you a lot of the same training in certain scenarios (like flying approaches) for a lot less money. I could tell they weren’t there to just make money, they really did help me try to get the most bang for my buck.

They Let Me Use My Own Airplane

All of my private and instrument training was through American Flyers and I used their airplanes. But after I passed my instrument I bought my first airplane (a 1975 Cessna 182P). When it came time to get my first IPC (instrument proficiency check) I went back to American Flyers and asked if I could hire just an instructor to conduct the IPC in my own airplane. They were fine with this and I just had to get American Flyers added to my insurance policy (which is super easy to do) so that they weren’t liable if something went wrong in my airplane.

I would frequently see other clients’ airplanes in the American Flyers hangar and know that someone was in town for the week getting training in their airplane. American Flyers was pretty accommodating when it came to this and I was thankful. After all, that’s one of the reasons to have your own airplane is that it can reduce future training costs significantly versus renting through the flight school.

I thought it was a given that flight schools would train in your airplane if you had one, but prior to approaching American Flyers about my IPC I talked to another flight school that’s actually on the same taxiway as me (so they’re neighbors) and they said they wouldn’t use my airplane. I fought back and so they introduced me to the owner and he point blank told me that they make a lot more money if they have an instructor and an airplane go out on a training mission than if they just “rented” me the instructor, and so for that reason they absolutely couldn’t use my airplane. That was the last I talked to them.

American Flyers: The Bad

I only have a few complaints (if you even call them complaints) about American Flyers, but I think they would be pretty common among flight schools in general. Either way, here they are:

Too Many Instructors Per Student

Having access to instructors is definitely a good thing and as I mentioned above allowed me to be relatively flexible in when I could schedule my training lessons. But during my instrument rating training I noticed that I had over 10 different instructors. I had a file on my phone to keep track of them and remember their names.

This was sort of helpful in the sense that I learned tips and tricks from each of them, but it also slowed me a down a little bit because there wasn’t as much continuity in the training styles. The material and curriculum is all the same from instructor to instructor but we wasted some time in pre-flight briefings with them having to ask if I had already learned or demonstrated certain things. After a while this was a little frustrating because I wish I just had the same 2-3 instructors the whole way through.

Instructor Turnover

II think this is probably common among flight schools but part of the reason I had so many different flight instructors is that they kept meeting their hour requirements and graduating to the airlines. This is not unique to American Flyers though and is just a reality of the aviation world right now.

Being a CFI is generally just a stepping stone to hitting your hours to go to the airlines, and so there’s natural turnover in your cohort of instructors as they graduate and move on. A benefit of having a solo instructor (not associated with a flight school) is that usually they like teaching for teaching’s sake and aren’t trying to just use it as a route to go to the airlines.

Front Desk Staff Were Hit or Miss

When I was working on my private I remember the front desk staff (schedulers, etc.) being very cheerful and welcoming, and when I was later working on my instrument and commercial ground it was just a different set of people that I found less customer-savvy. I’m not sure if this is cultural within American Flyers or they just had a group of staff at that one point in time that I didn’t really like, but it was disappointing to see that dynamic change.

I also think that there are a lot more students and instructors coming and going through the doors now than there was in 2007 and so perhaps the staff now are just used to quantity versus quality but either way I wouldn’t consider this a reason to not use American Flyers… it’s just something I have observed over time.

Overall Review: Highly Recommend

My experience overall with American Flyers has been a really positive one and I still recommend them to friends and strangers I meet. I have spent hundreds of hours there and tens of thousands of dollars and am happy with the training I received.

Also, it’s worth noting that while a lot of my training has come from American Flyers, it’s not the only place I have trained. I have trained with several one-off instructors and that experience has been extremely positive as well.

My commercial was through a solo flight instructor as was my tailwheel rating. My seaplane rating was from a small one-airplane school in Alaska. So, I’ve gotten a blend of flight instruction settings and would still highly recommend a formal flight school like American Flyers over a one-off instructor if you have access to it.

The part 141 schools will be very consistent, predictable, and proven in their curriculum and methodology (as required by law) whereas a part 61 school or instructor won’t necessarily have those same protocols or flight training requirements.

If you’re looking into starting your flight training, here are a few other articles we’ve taken a good amount of time to write and hope it can serve as a resource to you in your training and piloting endeavors:

Blue skies!