You should not have to cross the whole metroplex at five o'clock to learn to fly. I teach out of Hicks Airfield and Northwest Regional in Roanoke, whichever one is your shorter drive.
If you live in Fort Worth and the school is on the Dallas side, a 90 minute lesson becomes a four hour afternoon, twice a week, in traffic. People do that for about two months. It is almost never the flying that beats them.
Two home fields cover the north and west side. Pick on drive time, because nothing else about the training changes. If neither is close, look at the full list of airports.
North of Fort Worth off Blue Mound Road. The usual answer for north or west Fort Worth, Saginaw or Haslet. The Van's RV-12 I instruct in is based here. No airline traffic, so less time holding short and more time flying, still inside the busy airspace you need to learn.
Open in MapsIn Roanoke, a few miles northeast of Hicks, and the shorter drive from Keller, Trophy Club, Southlake, Argyle or Flower Mound. The second RV-12 lives here, the same airplane with the same panel, so you can fly out of either field without relearning anything.
Open in MapsIt works in your favor. We build the radio in stages, deliberately, so it arrives as a skill instead of all at once on a bad day.
You pay for the hours you fly as you fly them, which also means nothing is trapped if life gets in the way for a month. The RV-12 rates are on the airplanes page.
One hour, at whichever field is closer, before you commit to anything at all.
The things people ask before their first call. If yours is not here, ask me directly.
Settle Aviation flies the Fort Worth side of the metroplex out of two home fields. Hicks Airfield, identifier T67, sits north of Fort Worth off Highway 287 and is the usual choice for students in north and west Fort Worth, Saginaw and Haslet. Northwest Regional Airport, identifier 52F, is in Roanoke a few miles away and works better for students in Keller, Trophy Club, Southlake, Argyle and Flower Mound. A Van's RV-12 is based at each field, the same airplane with the same panel, so you can train out of either one. Instruction is priced identically at both, and there is no travel surcharge for meeting you at whichever one is your shorter drive. If you are not sure which field makes sense, give me your zip code on the phone and I will tell you honestly, including if the answer is a field on the Dallas side.
Flight instruction is 75 dollars per hour and ground instruction is 50 dollars per hour, the same on the Fort Worth side as anywhere else in the metroplex, with no travel surcharge. The airplane is billed separately and depends on which one you fly. The Van's RV-12 trainers, the airplanes most people on this side of the metroplex learn in, are 165 dollars an hour wet, which means fuel is included, so one hour of dual comes to 240 dollars. Every tail, with its panel and rate, is on the fleet page. For a full private pilot certificate, plan on 55 to 75 hours rather than the 40 hour FAA minimum, because that is what most people actually need. There are no packages, no block purchases and no deposits. You pay for the hours you actually fly, as you fly them, and I will walk through the full numbers on the phone.
No, and the drive is the single most common reason people on the west side quit. Most flight schools own or lease space at one field and every lesson has to happen there, which for a Fort Worth resident often means crossing the entire metroplex during rush hour twice a week. That turns a 90 minute lesson into a four hour commitment, and it is what quietly kills training for busy people far more often than difficulty or cost. Settle Aviation is not tied to a single field, so lessons happen at whichever airport is closest to you. On the west side that is normally Hicks Airfield north of Fort Worth or Northwest Regional in Roanoke. The instruction, the syllabus and the hourly rate are the same either way. Only the drive changes, and the drive is the part that decides whether you finish.
Busier than most students expect, which is genuinely good for your training. The west side sits under the shelves of the Dallas Fort Worth Class B airspace, and within a short flight you have several Class D towered fields plus military traffic associated with Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth. Learning here means you handle controlled airspace, tower communication and traffic awareness from early on rather than treating them as an advanced topic. Students who train in quiet uncontrolled areas often struggle the first time they fly into a busy metropolitan airport. You will not have that problem. We work the radio deliberately and in stages, so it builds as a skill instead of arriving all at once, and by your checkride the airspace is routine rather than intimidating. That confidence is worth more than an easier first few months would have been.
That is most of who I train. The obstacle is almost never ability, it is the calendar, and the fix is scheduling that bends around your work instead of the reverse. Settle Aviation trains under Part 61, which means there is no fixed class schedule and no required order of stages, so lessons go early mornings, evenings and weekends as your week allows. The realistic timeline for someone flying twice a week is five to seven months to a private pilot certificate. Flying once a week or less stretches that considerably and costs more overall, because each lesson spends time re-covering the last one. If your travel is unpredictable, tell me that up front and we will plan around the gaps rather than pretending they will not happen. A plan that survives a busy quarter beats one that quietly assumes a quiet quarter.
Yes, and it departs from whichever Fort Worth side field is closer to you. A discovery flight is your first real lesson: you sit in the left seat, you fly the airplane for most of the hour, and the time is logged in your logbook as dual instruction received toward your certificate. It is not a sightseeing ride with you as a passenger, and it is not a discounted marketing product that resets to zero when you start training. It costs the standard 75 dollars per hour for instruction plus the airplane, billed exactly like every lesson after it. Bring proof of US citizenship, which TSA rules require before any flight training: a US passport, or a birth certificate plus a photo ID. If you decide it is not for you, that is a completely acceptable outcome. You will have spent one hour finding out instead of another year wondering.
I will tell you which field is your shortest drive, which airplane is based there, and what a realistic schedule looks like against your work. You will always talk to me, never a front desk.
Call or text (806) 240-5310 Email [email protected]
