Block Time Vs Pay-As-You-Go Flight Training

Block time means paying for a quantity of flying in advance in exchange for a lower hourly rate; pay-as-you-go means buying each lesson as you take it at the full posted rate. At You Fly LA the block model is built into our fixed-price courses, which is why a Cessna 162 or Piper Warrior costs $179 an hour inside a package and $269 an hour at retail, and a Cirrus SR22 Turbo costs $449 inside a package and $649 at retail. The question is not which is cheaper per hour, because the answer is obvious. It is whether your calendar can actually deliver the flying the block assumes.

This page is about choosing between the two purchase models. If you want the rate card itself, every price is listed on flight school rates at Van Nuys, and the per-lesson billing mechanics, including Hobbs versus tach time and wet versus dry rates, are on flight lesson cost per hour in Los Angeles.

What Block Time Means In Flight Training

The traditional form is simple. A school sells you ten or twenty hours of aircraft time up front at a discount, the money sits on your account, and each flight draws it down until the balance runs out. The school gets cash in advance and a student who has a reason to keep coming back. You get a lower rate and a small administrative nuisance in watching the balance.

Underneath the discount is a trade of risk. You are taking on the risk that the school is still operating when you come to use the hours, and the school is taking on the risk that its costs rise before you fly them. That is the whole mechanism, and every decision about block time follows from it.

Our version is the same trade in a more useful shape. Rather than selling raw hours against an account balance, we sell a complete course at a fixed price containing a defined block of aircraft time, dual instruction, ground instruction, simulator time and course materials. The Private Pilot Standard package at $10,400 contains 38 hours of aircraft time, 2 hours of simulator, 30 hours of dual and 3 hours of ground. The Instrument Rating at $11,700 contains 20 hours of aircraft, 20 hours of simulator, 40 hours of dual and 10 hours of ground. Buying the course buys the block.

The Two Rate Columns, Side By Side

Instruction is $110 an hour either way and does not change with the model, so the whole of the difference sits in the aircraft and the simulator. Two further things are inside the package and outside the retail column: ground instruction, and books, charts and course materials. Those are easy to forget when you are comparing hourly numbers, and on a course with 10 hours of ground they are worth over $1,000 on their own.

The Arithmetic On A Private Pilot Certificate

Take 38 hours of aircraft time, of which 30 are flown dual and 8 solo, plus 3 hours of ground, which is what the Private Pilot Standard package contains.

Bought at retail, the aircraft alone is 38 hours at $269, which is $10,222. The instructor is 30 hours at $110, which is $3,300. Ground instruction is 3 hours at $110, which is $330. Books and charts come out of your pocket. The total before any third-party fee is $13,852, and you have bought no simulator time at all.

Bought as the package, the same flying, plus 2 hours in the full-motion simulator and the course materials, is $10,400. The gap is a shade under $3,500 on a single certificate, and it grows on courses with more ground and more simulator: the Instrument Rating package contains 20 simulator hours and 10 ground hours, which at retail would be $4,000 and $1,100 respectively.

That looks decisive, and for most students it is. But it only holds if you fly the hours. The block is priced around a student who trains at a steady rhythm and finishes near the hours in the package. A student who flies once a month will need considerably more than 38 hours to reach the standard, because skill decays between lessons, and the honest answer for that student is a bigger package rather than a smaller one. The Comprehensive package at $15,400 is built around 55 hours precisely because that is what once- or twice-weekly training actually takes.

What You Give Up By Buying The Block

Three real things, and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling.

• Flexibility. You have committed to a course of training at one school. If you move city, change your mind about the certificate, or simply lose interest, you are in a conversation about terms rather than simply stopping.
• Counterparty risk. Money paid in advance sits with the school until you fly it. That risk is real in any industry where customers prepay, and it is the reason to look at how long an operation has been at the field and how many aircraft it owns before you hand over a deposit.
• The illusion of a fixed total. A package fixes the price of the hours inside it. It does not fix the number of hours you will need, and it never covers the FAA medical, the knowledge test or the examiner's fee. What is and is not covered is set out on fixed-price flight training, and the third-party costs are listed on the hidden costs of flight training.

We mitigate the first two the way any student should ask a school to: payment in installments rather than in one lump. Most of our courses start at $2,500 down with the balance in equal monthly payments, interest-free, for up to twelve months, so you are never holding a large balance with us for a long period. The published terms that govern enrollment sit on our refund, enrollment and rental policies, and the payment structures are on flight training financing.

What You Give Up By Paying As You Go

Also three things, and they are less obvious because they do not appear on an invoice.

• Roughly $90 to $200 an hour. On a private pilot certificate that is thousands of dollars for identical training.
• The ground instruction. Students paying by the hour skip briefings and debriefs to save $110, which is the single most expensive economy in flight training. An hour on the whiteboard before a lesson routinely saves two in the air.
• Momentum. A course with a payment plan and a syllabus creates a schedule. A pay-as-you-go student books when the month feels affordable, which produces gaps, and gaps produce repeated lessons. This is the mechanism by which paying as you go ends up costing more than the hourly saving ever was.

Who Should Pay As You Go

• You are not sure you want this yet. Fly a few lessons at retail before committing. A discovery flight at $229 and two hourly lessons will tell you more than any amount of reading.
• You already hold the certificate. Rental, flight reviews, currency flights and checkouts are retail transactions by nature. There is no course to buy.
• Your availability is genuinely unpredictable. Shift work, deployments, a job with unannounced travel. Buying a block you cannot fly is worse than paying full rate for the hours you can.
• You are finishing a certificate started elsewhere. Partly complete training rarely maps onto a package cleanly, and the honest arrangement is usually hourly until the remaining work is known.

Who Should Buy The Block

• You have decided on a certificate and a timeline. The package is built for exactly this and it is meaningfully cheaper.
• You can fly at least twice a week. That rhythm is what keeps the hours near the number in the package.
• You want ground instruction included rather than rationed. This is where packages quietly win.
• You need a fixed number to plan around. A single figure with a payment plan is easier to budget and easier to finance than an open meter.
• You want simulator time. At $120 an hour inside a package against $200 at retail, and with up to 50 creditable hours toward the Commercial certificate and 20 of the 40 instrument dual hours, the full-motion simulator is the cheapest genuine training hour available.

Questions To Ask Before Buying Block Time Anywhere

These apply to us as much as to anybody, and a school that answers them uncomfortably has told you something.

• What exactly is inside the block: aircraft only, or instruction, ground and materials as well?
• Does the block expire, and on what date?
• What happens to unused money if I stop, and is that written down?
• Is the rate locked for the life of the block if fuel prices move?
• Can I use the hours in more than one aircraft type, and at what rate?
• How many aircraft of that type does the school operate, and how many students share them?
• Is the aircraft rate wet or dry, and is time billed on the Hobbs meter or the tachometer?

The last two decide whether a quoted rate is comparable at all. Every rate we publish is wet, so fuel is included; confirm the billing meter for your specific aircraft in writing when you enroll or open a rental account, and ask any school you are comparing us against to do the same. The fleet question is the one most people forget: a low block rate at a school with one airplane of the type is worth less than a higher rate at a school with five, because a grounded airplane costs you weeks and weeks cost more than dollars per hour. Our fleet, with quantities and tail numbers, is on the airplanes you will fly.

Related Reading

• Flight school rates at Van Nuys lists every package and retail rate on one page.
• Fixed-price flight training covers what a package includes and what it never includes.
• Flight training financing explains deposits, installments and training loans.
• The hidden costs of flight training lists the fees that sit outside any rate model.
• Flight lesson cost per hour in Los Angeles covers Hobbs, tach, wet and dry billing.
• Refund, enrollment and rental policies sets out our published terms.

Block Time FAQ

What Is Block Time At A Flight School?

Paying for a quantity of flying in advance in return for a lower hourly rate. The money is held against your training and drawn down as you fly. At You Fly LA the block is built into fixed-price course packages rather than sold as a bare hourly balance, so it also includes instruction, ground, simulator time and course materials.

How Much Cheaper Is A Block Rate?

Ninety dollars an hour on a Cessna 162 or Piper Warrior, $179 in a package against $269 at retail. One hundred dollars an hour on a Diamond DA20-C1, $120 on the Piper Arrow, and $200 an hour on the Piper Seminole and the Cirrus SR22 Turbo. The simulator is $120 in a package against $200 at retail.

Is Block Time Worth It For A Private Pilot Certificate?

For the same 38 hours of aircraft time and 30 hours of dual, buying at retail comes to roughly $13,850 before third-party fees, while the Private Pilot Standard package is $10,400 and also includes simulator time and course materials. It is worth it if you can fly the hours at a steady rhythm.

Can I Pay As I Go Instead Of Buying A Package?

Yes. Every aircraft has a published retail rate and instruction is $110 an hour, so you can book lesson by lesson with no commitment. It costs more per hour for identical training, and students who pay hourly tend to skip ground instruction, which usually costs more again in repeated flying.

Does Block Time Expire?

That varies between operators and it is the first question to ask anywhere. Ask for the expiry date in writing before you pay, along with what happens to unused money if you stop training. Our own position: package purchases are final and we do not refund them, and unused credit transfers to another student or to a discovery flight. The full wording is on our refund, enrollment and rental policies page.

Is The Instructor Included In A Block Rate?

Not in the hourly aircraft figure. Instruction is $110 per hour and ground instruction is the same. Inside our course packages both are included in the fixed price, along with simulator time and course materials, which is a real difference from a bare aircraft block sold by the hour.

What Happens If I Need More Hours Than The Package Contains?

You continue at the published hourly rates for the extra time. That is why choosing the package sized to your real availability matters more than the hourly rate. A student who can only fly once a week should buy the larger package rather than the smallest one and pay retail for the overrun.

Work Out Which Model Fits You

The honest way to decide is to look at your diary for the next three months rather than at a rate card. If you can find two slots a week, the package is the cheaper product by a wide margin. If you cannot, say so and we will price it hourly rather than sell you a block you will not fly. Book a free consultation, or start with a discovery flight at $229 for 60 minutes, flown from the left seat and credited in full toward your training if you enroll within 24 hours. Call (818) 330-1318, 9 AM to 9 PM, seven days a week, at 7900 Balboa Blvd, Van Nuys, CA 91406.