Whether a person wants to learn to fly as a hobby or for a career, whether they’re 17 or 65, Lake City Aviators want to be their trainer.
Carson Small, Lake City Aviators certified flight instructor, CFI, CFII and MEI, said Lake City Aviators started from a couple brothers and interested entrepreneurs out at the Warsaw Municipal Airport.
“The whole reason for starting the company and the venture was to get young aviators, specifically from Warsaw (Community) High School, Whitko and the surrounding schools in Kosciusko County involved in aviation and to be able to have an access locally to train to have a professional career in that industry,” Small said. “I think we’ve done very well in that area, now it’s just a matter of time before we can get the students out here to really realize what their options are.”

    Carson Small, Lake City Aviators certified flight instructor, poses for a photo with LCA’s Piper Twin Comanche, or PA-30. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

This week, Lake City Aviators announced they have both of their airplanes up and running and they’re wanting to create partnerships within the community.
“Our objective is just to make known that aviation is not exclusive. You can be as young as 17 and as old as 65, typically, is what a lot of people find the age range for flight training. It can be young, it can be old, you can have zero experience,” Small said, noting that at 19 he’s the first person in his family to become a pilot. “I did flight training with people as old as 55, so it is not exclusive. It’s just typically we like to have outreach to those young aviators.”
A person interested in flying lessons can contact Small directly through the Lake City Aviators website at lakecityaviators.com; email them at [email protected]; or reach out to Manager Jeremy Morrison.
“We’ll answer any questions that somebody might have. What we can do is we can do an intro flight, which is at a discount to let people experience what flying is like. And then, from there, we’ll set up future lessons. We’ll go over everything they’re going to have to study, what the requirements are for a private pilot license, just so the student knows what they’re going to have to do, what the requirements are and how often they’re going to have to study,” Small explained.
The time commitment dictates a person’s financial commitment.
“Typically, we’d like to see people fly at least once every two weeks, if not once every week. If people are only flying once a month, typically, that’s going to take them longer hours to get their license. So we like to say in between $7,500 and about $9,500, and that would typically include the check ride fee, which gets paid directly to a DPE (designated pilot examiner). That will not go toward Lake City Aviators,” Small said.
Lake City Aviators’ rental rates are $155 per hour for the aircraft and $55 per hour for the instructors. Once a person gets their private pilot license, then Lake City Aviators can set them up as a renter of the planes at $155 per hour.
Small said there’s three parts for someone to get their pilot license. There’s the written test, which a person has to study for and pass; the flight training; and then the check ride.
He started flight training when he was 16 and it took him about 10 months to get his license. Small then graduated high school, and then moved down to Florida for the rest of his flight training, which took another 10 months. He’s now on his seventh license.
“I did my private, private multi, instrument, commercial multi, commercial single engine, CFI, CFII and MEI. So, I can instruct in a multi-engine, but I can not do airline stuff yet. Right now I’m in the time-building phase, so while I’m instructing with people, that’s building my hours as well, and once I hit 1,500 hours, then I’m eligible for an airline, which right now I have a conditional job offer from a public airways down in Indianapolis,” Small said.
He’s enlisted in the military as a F-16 crew chief and does have basic military training dates with the 122nd Fighter Wing in Fort Wayne.
Lake City Aviators is looking for people who want a career in aviation as well, Small said.
“Usually, the range of the costs for all the licenses combined is $35,000 to $55,000, but when you look at that, college is more, typically way more than that. And right now the airlines are hiring minimum six figures. It’s a very good career and it has a high return on investment, so I think of flight training as a very, very good investment career-wise,” he said.
To work at the airlines, a pilot needs their commercial multi- license, so besides their single engine plane at $155 per hour, Lake City Aviators also rents a Piper Twin Comanche (PA30) at $350 per hour but still $55 per hour for instruction. While that may seem like a lot, Small said that’s one of the lowest prices in Indiana for multi-engine training.
“You will not find $350 an hour for a multi- pretty much anywhere. That’s a very, very low rate. I was paying $650 an hour down in Florida,” he said.
Lake City Aviators has two full-time instructors (Small and Caleb Akins) and two part-time (Cliff Hill and Todd Hammer).
“This company is not a company. We are low profit margin. Our main goal is not to make money. Lake City Aviators is more of an idea to make aviation accessible - not just to Warsaw but to Kosciusko County. We don’t want to just be a city plan, we want to be a county plan. We want the county to know that anybody young, old, it’s accessible, and we’re working on ways to make it more affordable as well. Aviation is not an affordable industry, but Warsaw Airport and Lake City Aviators are kind of binding together, making a coalition effort to make it more accessible to people,” Small stated.