Some pilots want to disappear from work for two weeks and come back rated. Others want to fly Tuesday after work, Saturday morning, and brief their kid’s soccer game in between. CRAFT does both. This page is for the second one.
Every certificate ends with the same FAA practical test. The path you take to get there is up to you — and it depends mostly on your calendar, not your ability.
Train when life lets you. Coordinate sessions with your personal CFI based on both of your availabilities. Pay hourly, only for what you fly.
Block out two weeks. CFI is yours every day. Sim mornings, airplane afternoons. DPE on standby. Done.
Aircraft rates include fuel and oil. Instructor rate is what your CFI bills for the time spent with you on the ground or in the air. Sim time includes the instructor.
Self-paced doesn’t mean slow. It means flexible. The pilots who finish their rating cheapest are the ones who fly often enough that nothing rusts between lessons.
Every flight has a warm-up. The first 15 minutes of any lesson is re-learning what you already learned last time. The longer the gap between flights, the bigger the warm-up tax.
Fly once every two weeks and you might spend 30% of every lesson just getting back to where you were. Fly twice a week and that drops to under 10%. Fly three times and you’re building, not refreshing.
Translation: the cheapest path to the rating is the most consistent one. Hourly billing rewards frequency.
As an at-your-own-pace student you get an account in Flight Circle — the same portal we use to run the entire school. It’s where you schedule, where you pay, and where your training record lives.
One login for everything: book the airplane, book your CFI, log your lesson, check your account balance, see your endorsements. No spreadsheets, no group texts, no wondering whether the airplane is reserved on Saturday.
The process is intentionally simple. We meet you, match you with a CFI, get you into the portal, and start flying. The rest is showing up.
Call, email, or use the contact form. Tell us where you are: brand-new, lapsed, or partway through. We’ll set up a no-pressure walk-through at the school.
We pair you with a personal CFI based on availability, personality, and the rating you’re after. You stay with that instructor through your training — no rotation.
You get an account in our scheduling portal. Aircraft, instructors, sims, payments, lesson notes — all in one place. We’ll walk you through it on day one.
Coordinate with your CFI on a cadence that fits both of you. Most students settle into 2–3 lessons a week. You log it. We invoice it. You finish it.
Self-paced students get the same DPE pipeline as our accelerated cohorts. Whether you train for two months or twelve, when you’re ready for the practical test, your CFI lines up an examiner in weeks — not the six-month wait you’ll find at most schools.
"Train. Test. Finish."
The bottleneck doesn’t move — whether you’re fast or slow, we kept it small for you.
No pressure, no commitment. Quick form below — we'll match you with a CFI and Flight Circle access.