Accelerated Flight & Instrument Training, LLC (AFIT) is a Part 61 accelerated flight training organization headquartered in Newport Beach, California, and operating nationwide since 1990. Founded and led by President and CEO Tony Montalte, AFIT has built its reputation around a single signature product: a guaranteed 10-day Instrument Rating course. The school claims to be the only accelerated flight training organization globally recognized for guaranteeing instrument certification completion within that timeframe, and the guarantee is substantive — instructors do not leave until the student has passed the checkride.   AFIT's core operational model differs fundamentally from traditional fixed-base schools. Rather than requiring students to relocate to a campus, AFIT dispatches senior instructors to wherever the student is located — the student's home airport, with the student's own aircraft. Alternatively, students can come to one of AFIT's fixed training locations across the country. In either case, the model is the same: one instructor, one student, all day, every day, until the rating is complete. No shared aircraft, no competing students, no scheduling gaps between lessons. The school explicitly avoids simulators, training exclusively in actual aircraft under real ATC conditions on the stated principle that actual flying time is irreplaceable.   AFIT's instructor corps is deliberately senior — the school describes an average instructor age of 58 to 62, with average total flight time of 10,000 hours and 5,000 hours of dual given per instructor. These are not time-builders; they are career CFIs and CFIIs who have spent decades in the training profession. Each student is interviewed prior to training to customize the course to their experience level, existing aircraft avionics, and available schedule, and many students complete courses in fewer than the advertised days with corresponding cost savings.   Courses offered include: Private Pilot (14 days), Instrument Rating (10 days, guaranteed), Commercial Pilot (6 days add-on from private​/​instrument), CFI Initial, CFII Add-On, MEI Add-On, Multi-Engine Rating, and finish-up courses for students stalled at other schools. All courses are priced at $775 per day for instruction, plus rental aircraft if the student does not own their own airplane. When an instructor travels to the student's location, the student provides round-trip airfare and a hotel room; no transportation costs apply when training at an AFIT fixed location.   The school also provides professional consulting services to aircraft manufacturers, law firms, corporations, government agencies, and private clients including doctors and professional athletes. It serves international students and maintains graduates in every U.S. state and internationally.

Home Airport(s)

AFIT is a distributed, instructor-dispatch organization with no single home airport. The corporate mailing address is P.O. Box 9099, Newport Beach, CA 92658. Fixed training locations where students can come to AFIT include John Wayne​/​Orange County Airport (KSNA) and Long Beach Airport (KLGB) in Southern California, Van Nuys Airport (KVNY), Sacramento Executive Airport (KSAC), Lincoln Regional​/​Karl Harder Field (KLHM) in Northern California, Georgetown Executive Airport (KGTU), St. George Regional Airport (KSGU) in Utah, Boulder, Colorado, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and others. In the student-comes-to-AFIT model, training occurs at the fixed location's local airport and surrounding airspace. In the instructor-goes-to-student model, training occurs at the student's home airport, in the student's aircraft, under local ATC conditions.   John Wayne​/​Orange County Airport (Southern California primary location) ICAO: KSNA | IATA: SNA | FAA LID: SNA Located in an unincorporated area of Orange County, surrounded by Irvine, Newport Beach, and Costa Mesa. Owned and operated by Orange County. Elevation: 56 ft MSL. Full-time ATC tower. Class C airspace. The sole commercial airport serving Orange County. Runways: Runway 2L​/​20R — 5,700 ft × 150 ft (primary; asphalt; ILS​/​LOC approach to Runway 20R; MALSR; the shortest runway in the U.S. handling regularly scheduled international flights) Runway 2R​/​20L — 2,887 ft × 75 ft (general aviation; asphalt) KSNA is subject to significant noise abatement procedures due to its location surrounded by dense residential areas in Newport Beach, Irvine, and Costa Mesa. Commercial departures are prohibited between 10:00 PM and 7:00 AM (8:00 AM Sundays); commercial arrivals prohibited between 11:00 PM and 7:00 AM. Runway 20R departures require a steep initial climb to 500–700 ft followed by immediate power reduction and a left turn to 175 degrees to route departures over a designated lower-noise corridor. These noise abatement departure procedures are operationally demanding and constitute genuinely challenging airspace and procedure training for instrument students — KSNA's Class C environment, proximity to LAX Class B (approximately 35 nm west), and heavy commercial​/​corporate traffic mix create a real-world IFR operating environment with no equivalent at quieter GA fields. Southern California's combination of coastal marine layer, Santa Ana wind events, and high-density airspace makes the region one of the most instructive IFR training environments in the country.

Fleet and Facilities

AFIT does not maintain a centralized fleet. Training is conducted in the student's own aircraft whenever possible, which is explicitly preferred — training in a pilot's actual airplane on their specific avionics ensures the skills developed are directly transferable to real-world operations. When students do not own aircraft, rental aircraft are available at each fixed training location through partner FBOs and flight centers. Aircraft types vary by location.   The school's Lincoln Regional (KLHM) location, operated in partnership with Lincoln Skyways, makes a Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser available specifically for taildragger instruction and endorsements. The Van Nuys (KVNY) location has historically offered helicopter add-on training through Robinson R22 and R44 aircraft. At all locations, AFIT's stance against simulators means every logged training hour occurs in a real aircraft under actual flying conditions — no desktop trainers, no portable BATD​/​AATD devices.   Ground instruction is conducted one-on-one in whatever facility is available at the training location — FBO briefing rooms, pilot lounges, or the student's own facility. AFIT's course materials and oral preparation are structured to prepare students not just for checkride standards but for genuine instrument proficiency, with the school citing a policy of evaluating students continuously throughout training rather than benchmarking only toward a practical test.

Hours of Operation

Monday through Sunday, 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM. For accelerated and intensive courses, training start times can be customized to the student's schedule — instructors have indicated flexibility to begin as early as 5:00 AM if that suits the client. Training sessions can be arranged at any point throughout the day when the student is available. The nationwide instructor deployment model means AFIT does not operate on a fixed facility schedule; scheduling is coordinated directly between the student and their assigned senior instructor.

Additional Notes

AFIT occupies a distinctive and somewhat unusual position in the flight training market. It is less a flight school in the traditional sense and more a senior instructor deployment network built around an intensely client-service-oriented philosophy. The guaranteed 10-day instrument rating — backed by an instructor corps with five-figure total flight hours each — is the product that has driven the school's national reputation since 1990, and the volume of testimonials across aviation forums and publications suggests the model consistently delivers.   The pricing structure rewards experienced pilots who own capable IFR aircraft. At $775 per instruction day, a student who can provide their own well-equipped aircraft and completes the instrument course in 8 days spends roughly $6,200 on instruction — competitive with or better than many fixed-base schools, particularly when the alternative involves repeated lesson cancellations and skill decay over six to nine months of conventional training. Students who need rental aircraft add that cost on top, but the overall time compression still typically produces cost savings versus extended traditional training.   The finish-up program is also worth noting as a market-specific value proposition. Students who have stalled mid-training at other schools — often after instructor changes, scheduling failures, or prolonged gaps between lessons — represent a significant segment of the GA training population, and AFIT's ability to dispatch an experienced CFII to a student's location, take stock of where they are, and push them through to checkride in a concentrated block addresses one of the most common failure modes in general aviation training.