Best time to learn to fly in the United States

Across 690 airfields, 79% of daylight hours have weather suitable for training flights. The best months are June, July, and August. December is the most difficult month, at 69%.

Share of daylight hours each month with weather suitable for training flights (cloud base at least 3,000 ft, visibility at least 5 statute miles / 8 km, wind no more than 20 knots, no thunderstorms, freezing conditions or snow).

The flying year in the United States

Across 690 airfields with flight schools, the typical one has weather good enough for training flights in 79% of daylight hours. That makes the United States one of the easier places in our data to learn to fly, but the national figure hides big differences between regions.

Nationally, summer is the best season: the typical airfield is flyable in 87% of daylight hours in July and 86% in August. December (69%) and January (71%) are the hardest months, when low cloud and winter weather in the north pull the average down.

Where the weather is best

The desert Southwest leads by a wide margin. Airfields in Arizona are flyable almost all the time, with Nevada, New Mexico and Utah not far behind. Year-round flying weather is one reason so many schools that run intensive courses are based there. Summer heat is the main thing to plan around: high temperatures and high-altitude airfields reduce aircraft performance, so early-morning lessons are common.

Florida and California are the other big training states, with large numbers of schools and good weather most of the year. In Florida the best months are March to May; in summer, afternoon thunderstorms are frequent, and those count against flyable time.

The Great Lakes states and the northern Plains are at the other end. Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakotas lose a lot of winter flying to low cloud, snow and freezing conditions, and the Pacific Northwest has long spells of low cloud in winter.

Planning your training

If you train in the northern half of the country, starting in spring lets you reach your first solo and cross-country flights during the summer, when the weather is most reliable. Winter training is possible but slower, and gaps between lessons usually mean extra hours to stay current.

If you want to finish quickly, look at schools in the Southwest or Florida, where cancellations for weather are least likely, and compare their prices in our cost guide.

Flying weather by month

By region

Airfields with the most flyable weather in the United States

How we worked this out

Based on hourly weather reports (METAR) from 2016 to 2025 in the Iowa Environmental Mesonet archive, at the weather station closest to each airfield and no more than 30 km away. Only daylight hours count. For each month we show the typical (median) airfield, with the middle half of airfields as the range.

Cite this data: BookFlightSchools, “Best time to learn to fly in the United States: flying weather by month”, 2016–2025. https://bookflightschools.com/flight-schools/united-states/weather

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