You have wanted to fly for a long time
Most people who call us say some version of that. They watched airplanes as a kid, or they got a ride once and never forgot it, or they have driven past the airport for twenty years thinking about it.
Then one day they call, and it turns out that was the hard part.
Everyone who calls has a reason they waited
"I am probably too old." You are probably not. There is no upper age limit on a pilot certificate, and some of the best students we have are people who finally got around to it in their fifties and sixties.
"I do not have that kind of money." It is real money, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. But you do not pay for it in one piece. You pay for each lesson as you fly it, so it lands more like a hobby you fund monthly than a bill you have to save up for. Every rate we charge is published on the site.
"I do not have the time." Most of our students are working around a job, a family, or both. They fly once or twice a week. We build the schedule around your life, not the other way around.
"I am not sure I would be any good at it." Nobody is, at first. Landings take everyone longer than they think, and the radios feel impossible for about a month. Then they do not. Every pilot you have ever met went through exactly that.
What actually happens on your first flight
You meet your instructor at the hangar and walk out to the airplane together. You do the preflight yourself, with them showing you what to look at and why. Fuel, oil, control surfaces, tires. It takes about fifteen minutes and it is the first time the airplane starts to feel like yours.
Then you get in the left seat. The left seat is the pilot's seat, and that is where you sit, on day one.
Your instructor handles the radios and anything you are not ready for. You will do most of the actual flying. People expect to be a passenger and are surprised by how much of it they end up doing. You will fly over your own town and pick out your house, which never gets old.
Afterward you get a logbook with your name in it and your first entry written in. That entry counts toward a certificate. If you keep going, it is the first line of a logbook you will still have in thirty years.
Who you will be flying with
Dan Lauerman started Compass and Prop because flying changed what his life looks like, and he got tired of watching people give up on it for reasons that were fixable.
The one thing we screen hardest for in an instructor is whether they actually want to teach. Not everyone does. Plenty of good pilots are instructing because it is the road to something else, and you can feel it from the right seat. We look for the other kind.
That matters to you more than it sounds like it should. You keep the same instructor through your training, so nobody has to re-learn what you can already do, and every lesson builds on the last one instead of starting over.
There is a plan written before every lesson and a real conversation after it, so you always know where you stand and what is next. More about Dan.
How it goes from here
-
First
Come fly
One flight, $145, no commitment to anything. Bring whoever wants to watch you take off.
-
Then
We build the plan
Around your schedule, your budget, and what you actually want out of it. Flying for the joy of it is a perfectly good answer.
-
Then
You earn it
Lesson by lesson, with the same instructor beside you, until the day you are a pilot.
What people ask us before they start
If yours is not here, call and ask. Nobody here is going to make you feel like you asked a dumb question.
Twenty minutes from Appleton
We fly out of Brennand Airport (79C) in Neenah, WI, sitting between the Fox Cities and Oshkosh. It is a quiet grass-and-asphalt field where you are not waiting in line behind three other airplanes to take off, which means more of your lesson is spent flying. Appleton International and Wittman Regional are both minutes away for when it is time to talk to a control tower.
Come find out
Book the flight, or call first and ask whatever you want to ask. Plenty of people call two or three times before they book anything, and that is completely fine.
Or send a text if that is easier.