A flight academy that doubles as a window seat over America's most beautiful coastline.
From your first discovery flight at $298 to your CFI checkride, we teach pilots over the same waters that draw the rest of the world here on vacation. Two airports. Real Florida weather minimums.
Private Pilot through CFI, instrument and commercial along the way. Real Class B traffic when you want it (Miami is 50 minutes by air), and the most photogenic cross-country routes in the country when you don't.
See Training ProgramsStay current, knock out your flight review on the Redbird TD2, or fly your own plane down and ride right seat with us. Existing pilot services start at $265.
For Existing PilotsFive scenic tours plus a Vultee BT-13 warbird experience. Sombrero Lighthouse, Bahia Honda, the 7 Mile Bridge, sunset over Mallory Square. Up to 3 people per flight.
Book a Scenic FlightEach step is its own milestone. Most students start with a Discovery Flight and decide if this is for them. From there it's a roughly 18 to 24 month journey to CFI for the average career-track student, depending on schedule and weather.
Your first certificate and the door to everything else. Most of our PPL training happens between Marathon and the surrounding islands, with cross-countries up to Naples and Homestead. Ground covers Gleim materials and weekly one-on-one sessions.
The rating that turns a Sunday-pilot certificate into a tool. We pair real-world IFR (the marine layer over Marathon makes for excellent actual time when it cooperates) with structured Redbird TD2 simulator hours so the cost stays sane.
Sharper precision, complex aircraft, the start of getting paid to fly. We cover commercial maneuvers and complex training, plus the PIC and cross-country time you'll need for the certificate. Most students finish here at 250 hours total.
Turn the entire training experience inside-out and learn to teach it. We've trained CFIs who went on to fly for regional and major airlines. The training environment in the Keys is unusually friendly to new instructors logging right-seat time.
We train in piston singles you've heard of, log instrument approaches in a full-motion-class Redbird TD2 when the weather isn't cooperating, and offer warbird experiences in a 1940s Vultee BT-13 for pilots who want to fly something with a story.
Up to three passengers per flight. Real aircraft, real pilots, real Keys aerials. Book by phone or by tapping any tour below.
An hour of low-altitude coastline from KMTH down past Pigeon Key, the full length of the bridge, Bahia Honda's blue-green shallows, and back. The most-photographed flight we offer.
Call to BookA short loop from Marathon out to the offshore lighthouse and back. The shortest taste of Keys aerials.
Call to BookThe middle Keys at low altitude: Duck Key, Conch Key, Long Key, the offshore reefs and uninhabited mangrove islands.
Call to BookA private flight timed for the Mallory Square sunset. The view that the rest of Key West is fighting through a crowd to see, on your own.
Call to BookFly in a 1940s Vultee BT-13 Valiant. Multiple mission packages available, all radio-and-camera ready. Call us for current pricing and availability.
Call for PricingThe two airports that anchor flight training and tours in the Keys. Both staffed, both bookable, both five minutes from food, fuel, and water.
Most students learn to land at an airport. Ours learn to land at an airport that a million other people are trying to vacation at. There's a difference, and it shows up at every checkride.
Florida is the second-busiest training environment in the country, and the Keys sit on the edge of it. That gives our students something most flight schools can't: twenty minutes of low-traffic local-area training, plus a 50-minute hop to one of the busiest Class B environments in America when they're ready for it.
Our weather minima look more like an airline's than a hobby school's. Year-round flying weather, real marine layer for actual instrument time, and crosswinds that test you the way the FAA designed checkrides to test you. By the time our students sit a Private Pilot oral, they've flown more conditions than most students have read about.
The questions we get asked the most, on the phone and in our first lesson with new students. If yours isn't here, call us.
The fastest way to get a quote, schedule a Discovery Flight, or ask anything else. Calls reach a real person during operating hours; messages get answered within 24 hours.
9850 Overseas Hwy
Marathon, FL 33050
3471 S Roosevelt Blvd
Key West, FL 33040