Before I had my mid life career change.... I spoke with…read moreseveral pilots at many different airports. All said this school was top notch. One school I interviewed at said they would hire me on the spot if I went through WESTWIND school. That's just to tip of my reasons. I drive almost at hour each way and havnt found a better group of people wanting to help at any time with any questions. I have received my PPL and IR rating. Will def continue here

Went here on a Groupon. $99 for 45 min. flight and 15 min. training on simulator. My wife got it…read morefor a gift knowing how much i love to fly but never got beyond video games. It started out bad as my reservation was cancelled due to weather and no one called. They said they did but i never got it. Anyways, I wasted a trip there only to find that out. Strike one. Next week we tried again. Weather was perfect. Our instructor, Steve, was very friendly and patient. We proceeded to the simulator. The deal was for one person, but they let my wife come in and watch and then come along on the flight as a passenger so it really becomes a deal for 2 which was cool. The trainer explained a lot before i started the simulator. He was quite thorough. I was nervous just on this thing, but I flew that and did fairly well. Then we moved out onto the flight line. He went through the pre-flight inspection on our Cessna trainer with me. Boy, there is like a hundred things to check before you fly. But I'm glad because it's all about safety. He fired up the engine and taxied over to the runway. As we were waiting for clearance from Clarence he asked if i want to take off? I nearly crapped my pants. They usually don't let you do things like this but i guess i exuded such confidence. (LOL). We ended up having to hurry out of the way of more traffic so he took control to get us going. Then he had me take the wheel and pull up when we got to speed. It was awesome! I was flying! He let me fly the whole way as we climbed, banked around and headed to Lake Pleasant and back doing different maneuvers and teaching me about navigation. As I descended into the airport he asked me if I wanted to land. Again I nearly soiled my Fruit of the Looms. I've had trouble with the rudder pedals before and declined knowing I could send us into the ditch by wildly swerving left and right. But I got us pretty close to the ground before he took over. I've done this one other time at another facility and they didn't give me this much control and time at "the stick" or training. If you are looking for something different and novel to do, I highly recommend this. I was on an adrenaline high all day!

Came here for two months this year, it was by far one of the worst experiences of my life. First…read moreoff they will tell you whatever it takes to get you in the door. Their website touts 7 ratings in 10-14months, 2-2.5yrs to the airlines... in reality it's taking them over 2 years to get students to 7 ratings, then you still have the 1500hrs to build after that. Out of the people they put me into their housing with; one individual was past the two year mark an barely working on his CFI and the other was at 7 months and barely up to his second stage check for PPL! Their focus is on their Cathay students, and they throw American students on the back burner. Cathay gets the best flight blocks and they will steal your plane if there's anything that breaks or needs maintenance on theirs, that way the Cathay students can get their flight hours.... Meanwhile you're stuck twiddling your thumbs. It's Phoenix and heat is to be expected, 95% percent of their planes do not have AC and rarely have functional blowers, greatly restricting the hours they can be operated in most months, and leaving you either sweating to death or not flying at all. They sell the program as having a lot of in person education in regard to the ground school. The reality is you'll have a ground school 4-6hrs a week and the rest of the education they offer will be home-study on a tablet, which they charge you over 1,800 dollars for the course work and is the equivalent of buying gold seal or sportys which you could get for $2-300 dollars. They tout having sims available for student use at no charge with unlimited access, in reality the sims are terrible, out of date, nothing like flying and often broken. If you want to use the sim you'll have to go in the middle of the night as they schedule "missions" on them during the day and there will be no availability. Flights are not scheduled until 6pm the day prior, so you have no room to plan ahead, (they literally require you to have no job or other school during your time as a student) then it's a crapshoot if you let actually able to fly or not, given factors I've mentioned prior. If you're lucky enough to get a flight block it's never more than 2 hours long, 1 hour of which will be eaten up doing preflight, taxi out and clearance. With that 1 hour you'll be lucky to get once or maybe twice a week they expect you to be wholly proficient and if you fall out of their "standards" they have no issue saying you have to retain/retake that lesson which will set you back an extra $6-700 dollars plus the time wasted trying to get the flight block. Their program is set up in away to be incentivized to fail you, which they will do often, then if you go to the admin asking for help they put you on a learning plan which is not set up to help the student but rather position them so that they can kick you out by saying it's all due to the students underperformance. Yep they will rake you over the coals, then say it's all because you didn't apply yourself. For a school with $120,000 dollar price tag they do not care about your success, they care about getting your money. They have no problem with the students not being scheduled for flights for weeks at a time, then expect you to show up and perform as though you've flown 6 times a week. Their hosing is outrageous $700 a month for a shared room, which again is only to serve to line their pockets as you will be paying $700 and lucky to fly 5-6 times in the month. They shame you if you ask to swap an instructor, and blame you as though your just trying to be difficult and will set you back at least a week saying it's admin trying to swap your instructor. If you're paying over 100k for a school you should be able to try every available instructor until you jive with one, not be assigned one and shamed if you don't get along. If you take a loan and withdraw early they will drag their feet on getting the excess funds returned to the lender, it took them over 2 months after the time they quoted! They blamed it on Zuntafi, but when finally getting them to clarify the date the funds were sent back on they had not sent them as the claimed they had earlier! They told me the ACH takes weeks.. standard ACH is 3 business days... it was going round and round with them just to get the unused money sent back. Just under two months at their school and I was out over $10,000! Not counting the money I spent to move myself from Portland to Phoenix to attend their institution. $10,000 for a grand total of 15 flight hours.... 15 flight hours over the course of two months. I wish I trusted my instinct after arriving the first day and hearing my roommates horror stories of the school, I begrudgingly stayed solely because of the amount of energy and money it took to relocate across country. I could elaborate more and honestly go for hours on how truly horrendous this sham of an institution is, but I'll leave it at this; Don't walk, RUN! As far away as possible from this money pit.

Every time I attend recurrent training I always learn something new and am glad I came.read more

Wow What a great experience Kaylin Smith was very, very professional. She explained all the aspects…read moreof the flight from take off the landing she answered all of my sons questions and made sure he was ready and allowed him to fly the plane. my son had a huge smile on his face from start to finish.

I did a bit of homework before I booked a Discovery Flight as a treat for myself. I talked to a…read morecouple of aviator buddies, and all have said this place was really good. I've now been here twice, and the staff have been great both times. Initially, I came for a tour and then set up a Discovery Flight a few weeks later. I was paired up with a female CFI, and it was a really good fit. CL was amazing with me from start to finish and really took the time to show me things, and I really appreciated that. We did a flight pre check, and then both climbed in and got ready to fly. The great thing about this place is that they have all the same Cessna 172s to teach their students. And, they all use G1000s EFIS. Maintainence of planes are done in-house, and everyone talks about how regularly they upkeep their planes and all are in very good condition. It was really fun going on this Discovery Flight, and I'm hooked! The next step is to get the process going to get my PPL...so I'll be back here soon enough.

I highly recommend training at Scottsdale Executive Flight Training. Currently as a 777 Pilot and…read morecertified flight instructor myself, I sent my daughter here after a disastrous time at Sierra Charlie Aviation. She spent over 6 months at Sierra Charlie Aviation and because of their incompetence, lack of awareness and poor scheduling, I pulled my daughter out of their program and sent her to Scottsdale Executive Flight Training. She was paired up with her instructor Maddie Moles, whom I cant say enough good things about. Under Maddie's supervision and instruction, my daughter, Calie has far exceeded and excelled at this flight school. They keep you informed, aware of progress and have a plan in place to keep their students moving forward at all times. Not only was Maddie instrumental in Calie's progress, the Chief pilot and head of Cessna training, Nick Lane, went above and beyond to make sure Calie was ready to pass her check ride without issues. Calie is looking forward to continuing training here at Scottsdale Executive!

Booked a surprise flight pilot ride for my wife on here birthday, however, it was a flop, and the…read moreflight was canceled on her birthday due to bad weather. We got to know about it once we reached the airport. Anyways we had to reschedule and as per availability, got for 2 weeks later. My wife loved it and it was a nice experience overall. Not easy to handle Cessna's but worth the once-in-a-lifetime experience. The pilot who flew with my wife was nice and welcoming. He engaged in small talk and did not let my wife bore me during the flight by answering all the queries. Taking away one star since I had to followup multiple times for the downgrade difference refund.

Amazing school! I was about to sign up for another larger flight school then decided last minute to…read morelook at some reviews. I'm so glad I did. I've had great experiences, expectations have been exceeded, my instructors are professional and extremely knowledgeable. Easy access to DPE's which has saved me a lot of time and stress. I've heard horror stories from other people who have gone to some of the larger schools, and I'm lucky that I can't relate. Planes are maintained really well, great avionics, safe environment to learn. I've never felt pressured to do a flight that I wasn't comfortable with while still safely expanding my limits. I love that they tailor every part of the process to the individual. My instructors, Riggs, Andrew and Kyle are top notch. Even instructors that aren't assigned to work with me are willing to help and answer questions. Alex is my go to whenever I have a question! She is probably the most knowledgeable pilot I've ever met. I can't imagine where I would be in my aviation journey if I hadn't taken a second to look at the reviews. I'm so grateful I ended up at American Flyers!

Thank you Adam!! Just took the three day course to pass my private pilot written exam. The course…read moreand material was spot on. The instructor did a amazing job of answering questions and keeping us on track. Start of the first day I was nervous about passing. By the end of the third I had confidence to take the exam. I scored a 91% on the practice test Then a 90% on the actual exam!!!!!! Adam- your awesome!

I needed to build the rest of my multi engine hours, and I was recommended this place by a family…read morefriend. They were able to get me in the next couple days to build out the remaining hours I needed very fast efficiently. Thanks Mohan.

EIGHT MONTHS AND $32,393. That's how much time and money I spent just to get my private pilot's…read morelicense even though I was trying to train FULL TIME. If only I could give this place zero stars for the amount of suffering I have had to get this license. I had high hopes of this place because it is part 141 and they told me they get DPEs the fastest in the valley to schedule checkrides which who knows is true and doesn't even matter when they had no interest in progressing me through my license and was just interested in taking my money. Brandon was my first CFI who I thought was a great instructor until the true colors started to show after two months. We were having regular classes until suddenly after New Year's he drastically slowed down my training in favor of taking new students. This really angered me as I wanted to train full time. Next problem I saw was he wasn't preparing me at all for the stage checks. There was so much discrepancy what the examiner wanted and what my CFI was teaching me, and they made it worse by blaming it on me while I was literally being set up for failure. Retraining for the stage checks really added to the total cost, especially when one of them was a cross country for no reason, and this happened multiple times that I had to switch my CFI to Daniel before I lost all sanity. This switch cost more than usual because I had to get reindorsed during the cross-country stage. But I still couldn't pass the second stage check because the examiners, even the whole school is against me and just want my money. There was even a time when I had to sit for about EIGHT WEEKS of no progress whatsoever. This was the school's idea of punishing me because I got a pilot deviation during my solo cross country instead of taking some of the blame and realizing their curriculum is setting us up for failure. I got the deviation because they don't think it is important for students to learn how to use a GPS to cross-check when the dead reckoning calculations were wrong. What made it worse is my CFI looked at my wrong calculations and endorsed it, making me have no reason to think it could be wrong later. This really made me depressed especially when all my friends and family are not in Arizona and I didn't have a good way to pass the time as I planned on training full time. I had such an unpleasant experience in the stage checks themselves. Chris did most of my exams and he is just an unfriendly person to be around. Forget about failing the actual stage check because he will insult you and make you worthless in the debriefing. I bet the military doesn't disrespect you this much. I just wanted a simple discussion with him, but he thought I was arguing and didn't even want to talk to me because he had some 15,000 hours of experience while I was worthless not having any license. I requested Nick to do my stage check as if that was going to be different. I did everything what was required at the time almost perfectly, but he just made up a reason to not pass me. At this point I was done with the school because I saw they had no intention of letting me finish my license and just wanted to take my money quietly. I had to finish my training at another school and waste even more money showing my new CFI what I knew. I learned more in one month there compared to seven months at AFTC. I also learned half the things AFTC taught me were just completely wrong, so I had to waste more money unlearning those habits. My checkride examiner almost failed me because I was referencing Jeppesen during the oral portion which is apparently not FAA-certified. How AFTC became part 141, let alone a flight school, with all these bad practices is anyone's guess. All the five-star reviews are from bribery. If you value your time, money, and sanity, stay far away from this school. It is anything but family.

Ben has been an excellent flight instructor for me and is honestly just a really nice guy who's…read moreeasy to learn from. He's a true people person who actually listens and understands how I learn, then adjusts his teaching to match. That made every lesson productive and comfortable. He's knowledgeable, calm, and safety focused, and the way he explains things makes challenging concepts much easier to understand. I was able to earn my Private Pilot License with Ben, and I'm now continuing my training with him as I work toward my IFR rating. His briefings and debriefs are always thorough and constructive, and I never feel rushed or talked over. Everyone else I've met at Leopard Aviation has also been awesome. The other instructors, including Logan, are always friendly and take the time to say hi when I walk in, which genuinely makes me want to keep coming back. I'd highly recommend Leopard Aviation to anyone looking for high quality instruction in a welcoming, professional environment.

I moved my wife and kids from Minnesota to Arizona in spring of 2023 to pursue my CFI certification…read moreat Leopard Aviation. Their estimated cost was $5,500 and completion in 6 to 10 weeks. I kept my schedule open for lessons. For the first 5 weeks, I met with my instructor about 3x/week. My check ride was scheduled for July, right on schedule with what the school had initially outlined. Two days before the check ride, for the first time in my training, my instructor said he didn't consider me ready and cancelled the exam. Shocked but following their judgment, I continued to study and work with my instructor. At this point he had stopped putting me on his schedule unless I specifically asked. Otherwise, I didn't hear from him. Eventually I switched instructors, but the new one was much the same; flying with me often for the first few weeks and then not communicating unless I reached out. In addition, I asked every week if there was an update on a check ride date, to which the invariable response was, "We're working on getting you a check ride next month." This continued for 5 months -- studying like it was my full-time job, pushing my instructor to put me on his schedule, paying for extra flights to keep up my skills while my instructor said that the check ride was just around the corner -- until January 2024 when I reached out to the owner of Leopard. I told him what was going on and, after his own digging, he told me that my instructor had no intention of scheduling me for a check ride and didn't believe I knew the basics of flight (I had at this point passed my PPL, CPL, and IFR rating and had over 300 hours of flight time). This was the first I had heard anything of this sort. I told the owner, and he responded, "you know, a lot of these young instructors would rather sugarcoat their feedback than be blunt." This meant leading me on for 8 months, over 30 flights and costing me over $15,000, his response was that I should either start over at Leopard or move on to another flight school. I called Red Rock Flight School in Mesa to book a "report card" flight with their chief pilot. His review confirmed what I already knew. The chief pilot said that I clearly knew what I was doing and that Leopard did not properly evaluate my skill level as I safely and successfully flew a plane I had never flown, with INOP gauges. I immediately started at another flight school flew with them 9 times (mostly to learn a plane I had never flown) and passed my check ride on the first attempt. Under no circumstances would I recommend Leopard Aviation. The integrity of a school comes down from the top. In Leopard's case, the owner did not take any responsibility for the way my instructors had led me on, cost me 3x the money and 5x the time with nothing to show for it. Instead he offered to let me spend more money at his school or leave my investment behind and start over somewhere else. To close, a quote from Leopard Aviation's website: "We focus on being efficient with your time and resources, providing clear guidance and strategies to success, and reducing the frustration and stresses that can develop with flight training. We believe anyone can learn to fly, and that there is no such thing as a bad student, only a bad instructor."

I met with Sawyer Aviation several times to work on a plan to accomplish a multi-engine/ commercial…read moreadd on. I was impressed with the professionalism and how structured the process was. I ended up working with them to get the rating done. Jonathan, the head of the flight school, was the CFI I'd be working with. I'm so glad I did. He was able to teach to my learning style and we worked really well together. We met early and stayed late to get me ready for the check-ride. Coming from northern California, I booked out a week to accomplish the task. Unfortunately, the DA-42 Twin Star broke. A broken fuel injector in one of the engines made it impossible to train in the limited time frame. I had to leave and come back. On my second trip back, the night before the check-ride, I got news of a friends passing in an aviation incident. Thanks to Jonathan's prep, the following day, I was able to pass the oral portion of the check-ride with flying colors and discontinued on the flying portion. I re-booked for a return visit. Upon coming out, the aircraft had an other issue during one of our flights. Sawyer's in house mechanics both times went above and beyond to get the aircraft back in service but the parts needed to be special ordered from Europe. Being in aviation and an aircraft owner, things like this just happen no matter how well an aircraft is maintained. Throughout this process, I was able to witness a side of aviation that most don't get to see. Sawyer's maintenance team rocks and worked their butt off to make sure things are tip top. Even though I wasn't able to finish my multi-engine commercial add on at Sawyer, they did take care of me. Jonathan built a foundation for me to finish a few months later back in northern California and I earned my ratings. I wouldn't hesitate recommending Sawyer Flight academy because not only did they treat me well, they training I received was top notch.

Recently met the owner of Sawyer Aviation and office personnel during a charter flight from LA to…read moreScottsdale and couldn't be more impressed with the owner. He was very personable,professional, knowledgeable about all aspects of aviation and willing to answer any questions I had about the entire process. He made our flight for both my fiancé and I as memorable and pleasurable as possible. I can assure anyone out there that you won't be disappointed in any business dealings with this fabulous company.