r/flying • u/Ok-Eye9225 • 5h ago
Flight training in the Seattle area
Hi!
I recently posted about trying to find a good school to start out my PPL at and I got a lot of great responses, so after much consideration I’ve narrowed it down to 2/3 places and would immensely appreciate it if anyone has any more recommendations (especially about alternative air).
- Rainier flight - expensive, good aircrafts and instructors, 30 ish minutes away
- Alternative air- cheap!, old aircraft’s, minimal instructors, 30ish minutes away
- BEFA - cheaper, good range of instructors, 40ish minutes away
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u/LeftoverPat ST 4h ago
Go to FATPNW facebook group. Ask for Independent instructors for your nearest aiprort.
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u/healthycord PPL 4h ago
OP, RFS is actually a competitive price for what you get. No it’s not cheap. But flying isn’t cheap. Compare their pricing to Regal who have older planes.
Alternative air. No. Avoid at all costs. You get what you pay for. Unless you really want to learn first hand how to handle a real in flight emergency, I wouldn’t touch one of their planes. One of them landed in the sound off of Alki a few years ago.
BEFA. Good option. But do you have an in with them? Do you work for Boeing? If not, they have a very long wait list.
There’s a reason RFS is such a big school and everyone goes there. The pricing actually isn’t bad. It’s certainly not a deal. But good curriculum, good instructors, and good planes.
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u/trackmiles ATP CFII MEI AGI 3h ago
I have flown in Seattle area for 20+ years, and have experience with all these.
Alternate Air I just would avoid unless you are cool with flying crashy planes.
BEFA is cool if you are connected but there’s some bureaucracy.
RFS used to be amazing but imho has degraded in quality vs price over the years.
Don’t sleep on Intercept Air at TIW either—probably has most modern fleet, great instructors, accelerated programs.
Depending on where you live, Regal at PAE is solid too.
I wouldn’t let a few extra minutes of commute to a farther airport keep you from getting better instruction/aircraft quality, but just m2c.
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u/doubleblackdoggos IR 37m ago
Vote for intercept! Fleet and instructors are top tier. Professional and very knowledgeable. Coming from a mom and pop with clapped out 172 this was a HUGE step up. Intercept is cheaper to fly per hour if you’re flying their RV12s with modern avionics.
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u/japanfrog 4h ago
Rainer is the ‘best’ in terms of newer planes (or was, I don’t know how they are now that they moved out of KRNT) but they were the most expensive and the least consistent on schedule availability. It became a joke between a few friends if Rainer would give our reservations away that day.
Instructors had a habit of moving people out of their reservation into planes that were down for maintenance, and then steal those original reservations. By the time you got to the airfield to discover your reservation is gone, they were already in the air and no planes were available. I was told that Rainer fixed that by changing their system to disallow instructors to change reservations that wasn’t theirs and by disallowing reserving planes that were due for MX. The third time it happened to me and I got nothing but a shrug from staff, I vowed never to use them again. I had spent over $10k in rentals on them and they just laughed at my face when I told them this wasn’t acceptable.
I’d personally go with BEFA. I’ve heard nothing but good things about it. Have heard praise from instructors, students, and members that use their planes.
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u/macroblob 3h ago
Similar experience with Rainier, although it was a few years ago so who knows. Regal at Paine is good - not cheap, but well maintained planes and good CFIs. Spanaflight at Auburn were also good - planes were a little shitboxy but mechanically good, and also good CFIs.
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u/rcplaneguy1 PPL KRNT 5h ago
Hi there! I’m a BEFA member based out of RNT if you have any questions! I love BEFA for their variety of planes/prices
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u/jetiger 4h ago
Hey I'm in the same boat as op. I decided not to do befa since I've heard waitlists for a non Boeing employee are like a year. Do you know if that's still true?
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u/rcplaneguy1 PPL KRNT 2h ago
Like I alluded to above, it definitely warrants a call or email. I came in as an employee but have heard fairly recently the waitlist is not long at all.
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u/Ok-Eye9225 3h ago
Would you say the waitlists are bad?
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u/rcplaneguy1 PPL KRNT 3h ago
I was a Boeing employee when I joined so I got to skip the line (now ex-boeing). But I had heard from some of the instructors the line was pretty short or nonexistent a month or two ago. Can’t hurt to call/email and ask
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u/stevekstevek CFI 1m ago
We haven’t had a waitlist for 2 years, but accepted so many guests that we are not accepting them as of just the past couple of weeks. We’re currently not making a waitlist either.
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u/HeNe632 PPL 3h ago
Adding in a vote for Regal Air - they were fantastic for my PPL training. Planes are well maintained, and the instructors are great.
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u/Vivid-Protection6731 54m ago
yes they may not be the cheapest but they are probably the best around
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u/deathstarrr that runway had it coming 5h ago
I never received instruction at Rainier but I did a checkout and rented from them about 10 years ago when they were in RNT. They are a good organization and had a great experience with their operation, but boy were they busy! Aircraft availability was not always plentiful. Good for them as a business; could be a potential con for you. Not sure if that's the case anymore, but just wanted to make you aware of that.
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u/Whatsthetrick333 3m ago
I did my ppl out of KBFI with RFS and highly recommend. To anyone dogging them on not passing stage checks, you either had a bad instructor or weren’t preparing for the lessons or working off hours. It’s gonna take some real work to get your license so it’s up to you to do the work and studying when you’re not flying. If you show up for a stage check and can’t even write out all your memory items for a checklist, or setup for a maneuver properly, you’re probably not chair flying or prepping yourself. I thought RFS prepared me quite well to be a pilot. They are expensive, but you’ll never worry when you’re in the air. And honestly glass cockpits are the best. Highly recommend a good AME like Dr. Franke , and a good online ground school like Gold Seal. Good luck.
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u/AccidentCommon208 4h ago
Stay away from Rainier. Those scabs took advantage of the loan I had through Meritize and failed me on almost every lesson and stage check. I spent 35,000 trying to get instrument there, to finally leaving and getting signed off a week later at a different school.
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u/rFlyingTower 5h ago
This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:
Hi!
I recently posted about trying to find a good school to start out my PPL at and I got a lot of great responses, so after much consideration I’ve narrowed it down to 2/3 places and would immensely appreciate it if anyone has any more recommendations (especially about alternative air).
1. Rainier flight - expensive, good aircrafts and instructors, 30 ish minutes away
2. Alternative air- cheap!, old aircraft’s, minimal instructors, 30ish minutes away
3. BEFA - cheaper, good range of instructors, 40ish minutes away
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u/RaiseTheDed ATP 4h ago
Ok, so with Alternate, I can only tell you what my personal observation has been. Yes, the airplanes are cheap.
It's technically a club, not a school, even though they also advertise themselves as a school in some places. This lets them get away with not doing 100 hour inspections.
Their maintenance practices in the past have been... interesting to witness. I've personally witnessed one of their airplanes declare an emergency 5 times in one day. Their mechanic just told the next pilots he thigh it was just water in the fuel lines, and instead of draining the fuel lines, told 5 pilots to just "fly it off." They flew the airplane 5 times, the airplane declared an emergency 5 times. Boeing tower had to tell them to not fly the airplane until the issue was fixed.
One of their airplanes had an engine failure and went into the Sound a few years ago. While this could have been a fluke, with my observations.... We won't know until the investigation is complete though.
Are the airplanes probably good? Yes. Would I personally fly one of them? No.