Straight answers before you book

No. Most people who walk in here have never touched an airplane, and nothing about a first lesson assumes you have. A Discovery Flight is built for exactly that: you take the controls with a certified flight instructor beside you the whole time.

A Discovery Flight is a real introductory lesson, not a scenic ride — you sit at the controls of one of our Cessna 172s with an FAA-certified flight instructor next to you. It is $125, and the time you log counts toward your pilot license.

Training aircraft are built for exactly this. Our Cessna 172s and the Piper Seneca have dual controls, so your instructor can take over instantly at any moment, and every airplane is maintained in our own hangar here on the field rather than shipped out to a shop. We also cancel for weather without argument — a lesson is easy to move, and no instructor here will fly you into conditions they aren’t comfortable in.

We publish hourly rates rather than one package price, because the total depends on how often you fly. A Cessna 172 is $145–$155 per hour wet and instruction is $85 per hour, paid lesson by lesson. The FAA minimum for a Private Pilot certificate is 40 hours and most people need more — flying consistently is what keeps that number down. Call 715-394-6444 and we will work the figure out with you.

Students who fly two or three times a week generally finish a Private Pilot certificate in a matter of months; flying once or twice a month stretches it into a year or more. Frequency is the whole story — long gaps mean re-learning what you already paid to learn. We fly seven days a week so you can keep a rhythm.

Yes — for a Private Pilot certificate you will need at least a third-class FAA medical certificate before you fly solo. You do not need one for your first lesson or your Discovery Flight. Ask us and we will point you toward an Aviation Medical Examiner near the Twin Ports.

A Cessna 172. We have four of them, from a 160 HP VFR trainer up to a 180 HP airplane with dual Garmin G5s and a GTN 375, plus an IFR-certified 172 with a Garmin G500. Multi-engine training happens in our 1983 Piper Seneca III.

Part 61. That means your training is built around your schedule and your progress rather than a fixed syllabus timetable — which is what most of our students, people with jobs and families and commutes, actually need.

Yes. Most students here pay as they fly, one lesson at a time, and for those who would rather finance the whole path we work with Stratus Financial, a lender that specializes in flight training. Aviation scholarships through AOPA and EAA are worth applying for as well.

At 4804 Hammond Ave, Superior, WI 54880 — on the field at KSUW in Superior, Wisconsin, about fifteen minutes from Duluth, Minnesota.

Yes, and it is the path a lot of our students are on. We train Private, Instrument, Commercial and Multi-Engine, plus CFI, CFII and MEI — the ratings that let you be paid to fly and to build hours by instructing. Our owner still flies as a contract pilot for companies in the area, so the route from this field to a paid seat is not theoretical.

Call us at 715-394-6444, or send the form on this site and we will call you back. From there the first step is a Discovery Flight: $125, one flight, one instructor, and time that counts toward your license.

Maintenance is done in house, in our own hangar here on the field, on the inspection schedule every training aircraft follows — a 100-hour inspection for aircraft flown for hire, and an annual inspection every twelve months. Keeping that work here rather than sending airframes away is the reason our aircraft downtime stays short.

Five: four Cessna 172s and a Piper Seneca III, plus a PFC DCX Max training device for procedures. It is a small fleet for a small school, lessons are booked ahead, and in-house maintenance is what keeps the airplane you reserved from disappearing to a shop for a month.

Usually early on, and deliberately not forever. Consistency helps at the start, so most students spend their first lessons in one airplane; later we move you between our 172s on purpose, because a pilot who has only ever flown one panel isn’t really finished.

Both, on purpose. N616SK has dual Garmin G5s and a Garmin GTN 375, and N784BG is IFR certified with a Garmin G500 PFD/MFD and a 430W; N5490H and N737DV are conventional steam-gauge VFR trainers. Learning across both makes you a considerably more adaptable pilot.

Financing through a partner like Stratus Financial is generally used for aircraft rental and instruction — the hourly costs that make up most of the bill. Books, a headset, your FAA medical, the written exam fee and the checkride examiner’s fee are usually paid separately, and they are worth budgeting for from the start.

No. Paying as you fly is how most students here do it: you pay for the lesson you just took, at the published hourly rate, and nothing else is owed. Financing the whole program is an option if you want to fly without gaps — not a requirement.

Yes, there is parking on site at 4804 Hammond Ave. Come to the main building and in the front door — somebody at the desk will be expecting you and your instructor will meet you there. You never have to find your own way out onto the ramp.

Yes — bring them. Family and friends are welcome to come along and wait inside, and most first-timers want somebody there for the landing. Let us know how many are coming, and check with us on arrival about where they can stand, since ramp access depends on what is happening on the field that day.

KSUW, the airport in Superior, Wisconsin, at 4804 Hammond Ave. It is roughly fifteen minutes from Duluth, Minnesota, and it is a quiet field — which means less time holding short and more time actually flying.