One CFI. One-on-one.
Settle Aviation is private flight instruction based in Dallas Fort Worth. Same instructor from your first lesson to your logbook sign-off, and no sales desk in between.
Sam Settle, CFI- Name
- Sam Settle
- Certificate
- Certificated Flight Instructor, Part 61
- Home fields
- T67 52F
- Instruction
- $75 an hour in the air, $50 on the ground
- Schedule
- Evenings and weekends available
- Teaches
- Private, instrument and IPC, commercial, multi-engine, flight reviews
No rotation. No packages.
There is no front desk, no scheduling coordinator, and no instructor rotation. There is one CFI, a clear plan for getting you where you want to go, and honest per-hour pricing.
We start where you are.
If you have never flown, we start from zero with a discovery flight. If you are a lapsed pilot, we start where you are with a flight review, not where a syllabus says you should be. If you are close to 250 hours, we go straight to commercial training.
If you already hold a certificate, we pick up the next rating from there: instrument, commercial or multi-engine, or an IPC to get your instrument currency back.
How does it start?
Every field I work out of is on the airports page, and the airplanes are on the airplanes page.
- 1
First, a call.
We talk through where you are and what you need. No charge, no commitment, and you know what to expect before spending a dollar.
- 2
Then, a plan.
How many sessions, what each one covers, how long, and what the instruction side will cost. No vague estimates.
- 3
Fly on your schedule.
Evenings, weekends, early mornings. The only thing that changes the schedule is weather, which is non-negotiable in small airplanes.
Common questions.
The things people ask before their first call. If yours is not here, ask me directly.
What is the difference between a private CFI and a flight school in DFW?
A big flight school in the Dallas-Fort Worth area typically employs multiple instructors, which means you may fly with a different CFI each session. Every new instructor spends the first part of your lesson getting reacquainted with where you left off, what you worked on last time, and what your specific gaps are. That is time you are paying for but not progressing. A private CFI gives you the same instructor from your first lesson to your checkride. That instructor builds a complete picture of how you fly, knows exactly what you need to work on, and tailors every session to your specific weaknesses. Private CFIs also tend to offer more flexible scheduling, including evenings and weekends, because they are not tied to a flight school desk or a shared aircraft booking system. Pricing is typically similar or lower than a flight school because there is no facility overhead built into the hourly rate.
How can I learn to fly faster without spending more?
Fly often, and do the free work between lessons. Frequency matters more than anything else, because skills fade between flights, and after a two week gap the first part of the next lesson goes to getting back where you were. Twice a week is the pace where most people make steady progress. Between lessons, chair fly: sit down at home with the checklist and talk through the flows, the radio calls and the traffic pattern out loud, as if you were in the airplane. It costs nothing and makes the real cockpit feel slower. Listen to live tower audio from a busy nearby field on your commute so the radio stops being a surprise. Take the FAA knowledge test early, so the studying supports the flying instead of competing with it. And book the next lesson before you leave the airport, every time.