What happens on a Discovery Flight at Anderson Regional Airport
A Discovery Flight at Palmetto Sky is a real first lesson in a Cessna 172 from Anderson Regional Airport (KAND). It costs $200, you take the controls with a flight instructor beside you, and the time goes in your logbook. Nothing is expected of you afterward.
By Palmetto Sky Flight School
A Discovery Flight is the first lesson of flight training, not a sightseeing ride. At Palmetto Sky it is flown from Anderson Regional Airport (KAND) in a Cessna 172, it costs $200, and a flight instructor sits beside you on a full set of controls the whole time. You don’t need any experience, and you don’t have to sign up for anything afterward.
Before you fly
You meet your instructor at the airport and walk around the airplane together. The walkaround is the same preflight inspection every pilot does before every flight: checking the fuel, the oil, the control surfaces and the tires. Your instructor explains what the flight will look like and answers anything you want to ask.
In the air
After takeoff, your instructor hands you the controls. You feel how the airplane climbs, turns and levels off over the Upstate. The Cessna 172 is a high-wing, four-seat trainer and one of the most widely used training airplanes in the world, partly because it is stable and forgiving. Your instructor has their own controls and can take over at any moment.
Back on the ground
You debrief together and log the flight. Because the instructor is a Certificated Flight Instructor, that time can count toward a pilot certificate later. The instructor also explains what training from here would look like: the Private Pilot License first, then the ratings that build on it. There’s no sales pitch, and the decision is yours.
If you decide to keep going
Palmetto Sky is a Part 61 school, so training fits around your schedule. The FAA minimum for the Private Pilot License under Part 61 is 40 flight hours. How long it really takes, and what it costs, depends mostly on how often you fly, which is why the school quotes each student individually rather than publishing a best-case number. Every airplane in the fleet is a Cessna 172 of the same model year with the same avionics, so the one you fly on your Discovery Flight is the cockpit you keep learning in.
Book it
Book a Discovery Flight, or call 864-720-3163 if you’d rather talk it through first.
