In regard to obtaining a private pilot's license before attending WMU, the answer to that question is very mixed. For some students, the experience is productive; for others, it hasn't helped put them in a better position.  

The first question in regard to obtaining a private - will it help accelerate my acceptance into a flight slot? The answer is: it may help, but only a very little. To dissect this, it is important to understand how we prioritize flight slots. The criteria for a flight slot is based on two things: 1. WMU GPA (if we had spots for new students, we would use their HS GPA.) 2. the number of credit hours successfully completed. The only exception to this, if a student has their private pilots license (but it must be complete and in hand at the time the student submits their flight application), they do receive five bonus points. While this isn't huge, if we have two students that are equal, the five points may help the person with the private.

The next question - will this speed up my progress through the WMU flight program? The answer to this is: maybe. It is best to understand that WMU trains students to become professional pilots. As a result, our flight curriculum and labs are incredibly rigorous. We also train following the Federal Aviation Administration's part 141 regulations, which hold the pilot and the training entity to higher standards.  Most students who obtain their private pilot's license at a local flight school train using the part 61 regulations, which are not as strict, and do their ground school online or self-study. As a result, some students come to us with marginal knowledge and skills. When a student comes to us with their PPL, the first flight class they do will be our private pilot transition course. The purpose of this course consists of three objectives:

• Complete a skill evaluation, making sure the student is operating at the part 141 level
• Orientate the student to the process and procedures that we operate under at WMU.  Our operations perform very similarly to those at a large airport.  In addition, we operate at a controlled airport, which can be very new to some students.
• To familiarize and learn the operations of our Cirrus SR20, which are equipped with a very complex avionics platform, Garmin Perspective+.

When doing the transition course, the syllabus is a minimum of 10 to 11 lessons, approximately four to six weeks long, and a minimum of about $7,583. Depending on the skill set and proficiency of the student, and the knowledge they have acquired in obtaining their PPL, some students hit the minimums, while others take six to eight months, and spend three times more. 

One thing to add, recently, we seem to be seeing more transition course students struggle than we have previously. We believe this is due to the fact that the number of training providers doing proficient work may be diminishing due to lack of staff, resulting in marginal training quality becoming the norm far more than it has been in the past.   

Our suggestion is to evaluate and investigate the local flight schools you may be considering. We suggest anybody seeking training in the part 61 environment shop carefully and ask lots of questions about success rates, instructor turnover, ground schools and total experience on the course for others who have completed it. As an aside and while this is definitely an outlier (we have only seen it once), we actually have had a student who arrived with private pilot certificate in hand, did very poorly in the transition course and repeated the entirety of their private pilot training here. We suspect there may be extenuating circumstances associated with that situation, but it has happened and is certainly far from an ideal outcome. 

At WMU, we aim to get our students flying as soon as possible. While we cannot guarantee an exact start date, we are pleased to share that our flight training backlog has been significantly reduced. As a result, we expect most students to begin flight training within the first year after the completion of their first semester: which could be spring, or summer semester of their first year, or fall semester of their second. However, please note that the aviation industry can be volatile, so these plans may change unexpectedly. Rest assured, our goal is to get every student flying as quickly as possible, regardless of industry changes. 

Yes! We strongly recommend that students stay during at least one of our summer semesters to take advantage of Michigan’s best weather and continually progress the student’s flight training. WMU also offers academic courses throughout the summer semesters. Summer I is roughly May-June, while Summer II is roughly July-August.

This depends on the student and their desire to learn. The average is 2.5-3 years to obtain the private pilot license, instrument rating, and commercial multi-engine license with single engine add-on rating. However, depending on flight availability, weather, and students, this timeframe can vary.

There are over 40 planes in our fleet, consisting mainly of Cirrus SR-20s.

• 32 Cirrus SR-20s Gen7 Equipped with the Garmin Perspective+
• 9 Piper Seminoles
• 1 American Champion Super Decathlon
• 1 Piper Super Cub on Floats
• 2 Cessna 150s

Check out our aircraft

The Cirrus is our primary training aircraft and is used in the private and instrument courses, while the Seminole is used for the Commercial multi-engine course. There are three required flights during the commercial portion of your training in the Super Decathlon. Our Sky Bronco Precision Flight Team uses the Cessna 150s for competition and practice.