Discounts for Clemson students, employees, and ROTC cadets
Discounts for Clemson students, employees, and ROTC cadets
Upstate Flight School is at Oconee County Airport (KCEU), two miles from Clemson. If you live in Clemson, Seneca, Pickens, Easley, or Anderson, the drive to KCEU is the same or shorter than the drive to Greenville. Some people assume KCEU is far. It isn't.
What changes when you arrive is the rest of the story: a quieter pattern, more flight time per lesson, a TAA trainer that prepares you for the Commercial requirement, and a Marchetti that handles both complex and high-performance training in one airplane.
From anywhere in the Upstate, the drive to KCEU is comparable to (or shorter than) the drive to Greenville.
| Starting from | To KCEU (Upstate) | To Greenville Downtown Airport |
|---|---|---|
| Clemson | 5 minutes | 45 minutes |
| Seneca | 5 minutes | 55 minutes |
| Pickens | 33 minutes | 39 minutes |
| Easley | 28 minutes | 30 minutes |
| Anderson | 39 minutes | 42 minutes |
If the drive isn't the deciding factor for you, the rest of this page is. Same drive, very different lesson.
Greenville Downtown Airport is the busiest general aviation airport in South Carolina, averaging 233 operations per day. Every flight involves coordinating with tower, sequencing with other aircraft, and waiting for clearances. A typical lesson there burns 10 to 15 minutes per flight just queuing for takeoff and entering the pattern.
KCEU averages around a quarter of that traffic, and most of those operations cluster around Clemson home games and event weekends. On a typical training day, the pattern is quieter still. You taxi out, announce yourself on the radio, and go. Your CFI is talking to you about technique, not coordinating sequencing. Over a 60-hour Private Pilot rating, that's hours of additional instruction time at the same rate.
When you need towered-airport experience, and you will, Greenville Downtown is 15 minutes away by air. You'll get the radio work as part of your cross-country training. You just won't sit through it on every lesson.
Our second airplane is a SIAI Marchetti S.205: a four-seat low-wing originally built in Italy in the 1970s for military pilot training. We use it for the complex endorsement, the high-performance endorsement, accelerated instrument training, and commercial finishing. All in one airplane, with one instructor, at posted rates.
Training in an airplane that's both complex and high-performance is a real differentiator. The combination requires retractable gear, flaps, a controllable-pitch propeller, and an engine over 200 horsepower.
Even a Cirrus, often the most modern trainer on a flight line, only qualifies as high-performance: its fixed gear doesn't meet the FAA's definition of a complex aircraft. The Marchetti satisfies both, so you can earn both endorsements with one instructor instead of splitting them across two checkouts.
Our Cherokee 180 is a modern Technically Advanced Aircraft: dual Garmin G5 electronic primary flight instruments, Garmin GNS 430 WAAS GPS, and an autopilot. The Commercial certificate requires 10 hours of TAA time, so you'll need a TAA at some point in your training regardless. Starting in one means it's the airplane you fly every lesson.
Pricing is posted in full at the pricing page. Clemson students, employees, and ROTC cadets get a discount. Prepay a 10-hour block in either airplane and save 10% on the wet rate.
If you live in Greenville proper and your nearest airport is Greenville Downtown, train your Private and Instrument there. We're not the right answer for that commute on every lesson.
But when it's time for your complex or high-performance endorsement, come fly our Marchetti. It's both complex and high-performance, so you can earn both endorsements in one airplane and one weekend instead of bouncing between aircraft. KCEU is 15 minutes by air or about an hour by car.
60 minutes flying, 90 minutes total. You'll be at the controls for most of it, with a CFI beside you the whole time.
No commitment. If you decide to continue, the time counts toward your Private Pilot certificate.
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