If your flight school is still billing students by the Hobbs meter, you are making growth harder than it needs to be. Unpredictable costs are one of the most common reasons career-track students walk away before they ever book a discovery flight. In this episode of The Aviation Business Podcast, Matt Wilkins, co-founder and COO of Hawkins Flight Academy, walks through the model he and co-founder Mike Harris built from the ground up: fixed-price programs, a modern glass panel fleet, full-time in-house maintenance, and an instructor culture centered on mentorship rather than hour accumulation. In two years of full operation, Hawkins has scaled to 140 active students across two locations and earned a 2026 AOPA Distinguished Flight School designation.
Full disclosure: Hawkins Flight Academy is a Right Rudder Marketing client. We have had a front-row seat to what Matt and his team have built, and it is exactly why we wanted to have this conversation. What Hawkins has done is replicable, and every flight school owner listening will find something in this episode worth bringing back to their own operation.
Who Is Hawkins Flight Academy?
Hawkins Flight Academy is a career-focused pilot training operation with two locations: Shelbyville Municipal Airport (KSYI) in Shelbyville, Tennessee, and Tupelo Regional Airport (KTUP) in Tupelo, Mississippi. The school runs a seven-aircraft fleet built around Van’s RV-12iSTs equipped with Garmin G3X glass cockpits, GFC 500 autopilot, and ADS-B in/out. The fleet also includes a Piper Cherokee 140, a Vector Harmony, a Cessna 172, and a Piper Aztec for multi-engine training.
Hawkins offers programs from Private Pilot through CFI, CFII, and MEI, along with an accelerated Professional Pilot Program designed to take a student from zero experience to Certified Flight Instructor in under ten months. The school graduated more than 50 pilots in 2024 alone and currently runs 140 active students across both campuses.
In 2026, Hawkins was named a Distinguished Flight School by the AOPA Foundation, an award based entirely on verified student reviews submitted by pilots who trained at the school in the past 12 months. It is a student experience award as much as it is a training recognition, and it reflects what Hawkins has built at the operations level.
The Problem With How Most Flight Schools Are Built
Most flight schools run on a model that was designed decades ago. Students pay by the hour. Instructors stay until they hit ATP minimums and leave. Aircraft age because capital is tied up in maintenance and ownership costs rather than fleet investment. And prospective students who want a career in aviation cannot get a straight answer about what their training is actually going to cost.
That last problem is one of the biggest conversion killers in the industry. A student who cannot predict their total investment will hesitate. Many of them will walk. The ones who do enroll often run out of budget mid-certificate and stall out.
Matt and Mike Harris built Hawkins as a direct response to these structural problems. The pricing model is fixed. The fleet is modern. The maintenance is in-house. And the instructors are hired specifically because they want to teach, not because they need hours.
What Makes Hawkins Flight Academy Different
Program-Based Pricing
Hawkins prices by certificate and rating, not by the hour. When a prospective student contacts the school, they get a total program cost. No surprises, no rate changes mid-training.
The Professional Pilot Program, which takes students from Private Pilot through multi-engine and all instructor ratings, runs $74,995 for Package 1 (Private Pilot through Multi-Engine Rating) and $89,995 for Package 2, which adds CFI, CFII, and MEI. The Accelerated Ground School is $499.99 for a 14-week, in-person course taught by a Certified Flight Instructor.
For students who need financing, Hawkins partners with Stratus Financial and AOPA Finance, which offers lines of credit up to $100,000. Fixed pricing paired with accessible financing turns the cost conversation from a barrier into a close.
A Fleet Built Around Modern Glass
Training on steam gauges is not preparing students for the aircraft they will fly professionally. Hawkins made the decision early to standardize on technically advanced aircraft with modern avionics. The primary training fleet runs on Van’s RV-12iSTs with Garmin G3X glass cockpits, GFC 500 autopilot, and ADS-B in/out. Students build TAA time from day one, which matters when they get to the right seat of a regional aircraft.
The school also runs FAA-approved Redbird simulators, developed in partnership with Motlow College. Students can log up to 2.5 simulator hours toward a Private Pilot License and up to 10 hours toward an Instrument Rating. The simulators reduce training costs and let students practice procedures in a controlled environment before taking those skills into the aircraft.
Full-Time In-House Maintenance
Most schools outsource maintenance or rely on contract mechanics. Hawkins keeps a full-time in-house mechanic team at both locations. The reason is straightforward: aircraft downtime costs students training momentum. A student who misses a week because their aircraft is grounded for predictable maintenance is a student who gets frustrated and disengages. Bringing maintenance in-house eliminates that variable and keeps the fleet available.
Instructors Who Stay Because They Want To
The aviation industry has a built-in instructor retention problem. CFIs arrive, build hours, and leave. That cycle disrupts student progress and makes it nearly impossible to build a consistent training culture.
Hawkins hires differently. The school recruits instructors who are invested in teaching as a profession, not just as a stepping stone. The result shows up in the student reviews that earned Hawkins its AOPA recognition. Students consistently describe instructors who are present, attentive, and committed to outcomes rather than logbook entries.
About Matt Wilkins
Matt Wilkins co-founded Hawkins Flight Academy with Mike Harris and serves as the school’s COO and co-owner. His background spans flight instruction and aviation operations. At Hawkins, Matt leads curriculum design and delivery, and his operating philosophy shapes how the school hires, trains, and retains its instructors.
Matt built Hawkins around a simple thesis: the traditional flight school model has structural problems that hurt students and limit growth, and those problems are fixable if you are willing to build differently. The school is the proof of concept.
What You Will Learn In This Episode
Why program-based pricing changes the student conversion conversation. Fixed costs remove the uncertainty that pushes career-track students toward schools that can give them a total number. Matt explains how the pricing model works, how Hawkins manages cost risk on students who need additional hours, and what the shift did to their close rate on discovery flight leads.
How to hire instructors who teach because they want to. The CFI retention problem is not just a compensation problem. Matt breaks down what Hawkins actually looks for when hiring and how the school is structured to make staying a viable long-term option for instructors who care about their students.
What it actually costs to operate a modern fleet. Standardizing on TAA aircraft with Garmin glass is not the cheapest path, but Matt makes the case for why the investment pays back in student outcomes, pass rates, and school reputation. He also walks through the in-house maintenance decision and the math behind it.
How to open a second location without losing what made your first one work. Adding Tupelo Regional Airport as a second campus meant replicating systems, culture, and standards at a distance. Matt walks through what transferred easily, what had to be rebuilt, and what he would do differently with a third location.
What the AOPA Distinguished Flight School recognition actually measures. The award is built on student reviews. Matt talks about what shows up most in that feedback and what it tells him about where the school is delivering and where there is still room to improve.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is program-based pricing for a flight school? Program-based pricing means students pay a fixed amount for an entire certificate or rating rather than paying by the hour. Hawkins Flight Academy uses this model for all of its programs. Students know the total cost before they enroll, which eliminates billing surprises and helps career-track students plan their training investment from the start.
What is the Hawkins Flight Academy Professional Pilot Program? The Professional Pilot Program is an accelerated, zero-to-instructor track designed for completion in under ten months. It covers Private Pilot License, Instrument Rating, Commercial Pilot License, Multi-Engine Rating, and, in Package 2, CFI, CFII, and MEI. Package 1 is priced at $74,995. Package 2 is $89,995. Both packages include more than 400 hours of dual instruction in modern Technically Advanced Aircraft.
What is a Technically Advanced Aircraft in flight training? A Technically Advanced Aircraft, or TAA, is defined by the FAA as an aircraft with a glass cockpit avionics suite that includes a moving map GPS navigation display and an integrated autopilot. Hawkins trains students in RV-12iSTs equipped with Garmin G3X glass cockpits, GFC 500 autopilots, and ADS-B in/out. Training in TAA from the start builds the skills and situational awareness that career pilots need before they transition to airline operations.
Why does Hawkins Flight Academy keep maintenance in-house? Hawkins maintains a full-time mechanic team at both locations to keep its seven-aircraft fleet in continuous service. In-house maintenance eliminates the downtime that external maintenance schedules create, which means students do not lose training days to predictable aircraft issues. For a school running an accelerated professional pilot track, consistent aircraft availability is not optional.
How does Hawkins Flight Academy use flight simulators? Hawkins operates FAA-approved Redbird flight simulators at both campuses in partnership with Motlow College. Students can log up to 2.5 hours of simulator time toward their Private Pilot License and up to 10 hours toward an Instrument Rating. Simulators let students build procedural fluency and practice instrument approaches at a lower cost per hour than aircraft time, which helps keep the overall program cost in range.
Listen to This Episode of The Aviation Business Podcast
Matt Wilkins joins Dan Gill to walk through the decisions behind Hawkins Flight Academy and what flight school operators can take from them.
- Date: May 4, 2026 at 3:00 PM Central
- Platform: Riverside
Build Your Flight School the Right Way
What Hawkins has built did not happen by accident. It came from deliberate decisions about pricing, culture, fleet, and operations made by owners who were willing to step away from the model everyone else was running. If you are looking at your own school and wondering where the leverage points are, that conversation starts with your marketing.
Right Rudder Marketing works exclusively with flight schools. We handle the full-funnel marketing system so you can focus on training pilots. Schedule a strategy call with our team and we will show you exactly what growth looks like for a school at your stage.
The Aviation Business Podcast is produced by Right Rudder Marketing, the only full-service digital marketing agency built exclusively for flight schools. RightRudderMarketing.com