- Home
- Flight Training
Learn to Fly With Us!
We have been making Great Pilots for over 60 years.
We invite you to join us for the fun and challenge of becoming a certificated pilot. We are a government sanctioned FAA Part 141 training facility with nine nicely equipped aircraft and a full staff of talented and professional flight instructors. East Hill Flying Club is not only a great place to learn to fly, but it also provides club members access to nine different aircraft at a fraction of the cost of ownership, and the lowest rental rates in the state. Members who are properly checked out can rent our planes for business or pleasure trips. You will be automatically fully insured up to $1,000,000. (No need for hull insurance.) Contact us today to learn more, or stop by the club at the Airport, at 62 Brown Road, Ithaca. Once you are training or after your have gotten your license, you can learn from other pilots and participate in the East Hill Flying Club. With more than 100 active members, there are always events and opportunities to immerse yourself into the aviation world. Weekend lunch trips to airports around the region, hangar BBQs, and many other local activities. The club also heads out to "Oshkosh" each summer for the largest aviation event in the world. At East Hill there are always both interesting and fun activities related to flying. Check the Events calendar to see what is coming up next.
Why Train with Us?
What makes EHFC different? We are one of the oldest flying clubs in the world-- and truly a club with a friendly casual atmosphere, but also with a safety-first, high standards, proficiency philosophy. When you train with us, you can be assured of being trained to a safe, proficient level, and not just to pass a test. But when it comes to that test, we have two member Pilot Examiners in the club and you will never wait long for a checkride. And as a not-for-profit club, we rent aircraft to our members at cost, meaning you'll have a hard time finding more affordable training elsewhere. As an FAA Part 141 Approved School, veterans can use the GI Bill to enroll in training.
The two big questions: How long and how much?
We follow the FAA Part 141 Certified Jeppesen Training Program. This means it is a structured program with multiple stages of learning and checkpoints to progress to the next stage. You spend time with an instructor on the ground, learning about flying, weather, navigation, and communications. In parallel you are also spending one to two hours per lesson in the air applying what you learned on the ground. For a Private Pilot Certificate you must be 17 years of age and you will need to log at least 40 hours of flight training consisting of instructed flight, solo flight, and cross country solo flights. Those numbers however are minimums. The national average for obtaining a Private Pilot Certificate is 72 hours of logged flight time, which is a more reasonable estimate. It is possible to get your certificate in several months, and this is dependent on weather and your availability. When you have completed the Jeppesen Program and have passed the written, oral, and flight stage checks, you can then take the FAA written test through our PSI system, and the oral and practical (flight) exams with an FAA examiner. When successfully completed, you are a certificated private pilot, and can begin flying club planes for personal or business purposes.
The cost of getting your license depends on several factors. This includes things mentioned above such as weather, your availability, the type of aircraft you want to train in, and the number of hours it takes to get ready for your flight with the FAA examiner. We estimate an average of 65 flight hours and $17,000 or so. There are several programs that provide scholarships for flying, including the AOPA Flight Training Scholarship Program and our local East Hill Aviation Foundation.
See our current Rates, and our estimates of cost for each rating, and to reach the airlines.