The EveryPlane is designed to Make Pilot Training Affordable

The average cost of earning a private pilot licence in the United States hovers around $10,000 — and that's before you factor in the ageing and increasingly scarce fleet of trainers most flight schools rely on. The aircraft keeping those schools in business were, on average, built in 1976. Nile McKinnon, founder of FlyBy Enterprises, thinks that's a problem worth solving from the ground up.

McKinnon's answer is the EveryPlane: a new light sport trainer designed from the outset to be affordable to buy, cheap to run, and capable of everything from a busy flight school's circuits to a camping strip in Idaho. I caught up with him to find out more.

Q: Where did the idea for FlyBy come from?
Nile McKinnon: It started with not being able to afford flying lessons myself. That led me to ask: why does it cost so much? And once I started pulling on that thread, I couldn't stop. The training fleet is old, parts are expensive, and nothing new at an accessible price point has come to market in decades. I figured if I was going to be frustrated about it, I might as well try to fix it.

Q: What makes the EveryPlane different from existing trainers?
Nile McKinnon: It's designed around cost of ownership first, not performance figures. A lot of aircraft are engineered to hit a spec, then someone works out what it costs. We went the other way. The EveryPlane has good handling characteristics and easy ownership — it'll be just as at home on a paved runway at a busy flight school as a 1,500-foot grass strip. The goal is versatility without complexity."Right now people buy a trainer, get their licence, then sell it. I hope the EveryPlane will make that an even more sensible strategy.

Q: Who is the EveryPlane actually for — flight schools, private buyers, or both?
Nile McKinnon: Primarily it's a trainer first, and I hope it will be popular with flight schools. But the same characteristics that make it a good trainer make it a great first aeroplane. Right now a common tactic for people trying to save money on their licence is to purchase the trainer themselves, instead of spending $7,000 renting someone else's aircraft over the course of their training, then selling it when they're ready to move up. I hope the EveryPlane will serve well in that role too.

Q: How are you navigating certification?
Nile McKinnon: The EveryPlane will be certified under ASTM standards as a Special Light Sport Aircraft — that's been the plan from square one, so it's being designed to make the most of the SLSA category's limits. It'll be powered by a Rotax engine, which is ASTM certified. The engine is nearly a third of the total cost, and I didn't want to fall into the same trap others have of trying to manufacture and certify an engine themselves. That's a much harder problem than the airframe.

Q: When can we expect to see a prototype?
Nile McKinnon: Since March 2024 we've gone through countless revisions after doing materials testing, manufacturability studies, fatigue and crack prevention analysis. I don't want to commit to hard dates before the final production design is locked down — but I'm hopeful we can bring a prototype to the Alabama Airfest in September this year.

Q: And the long-term vision for FlyBy?
Nile McKinnon: Current estimates predict we're going to need nearly one million pilots by 2040. That means we're going to need to train them — and with the average training aircraft built in 1976, there'll be demand for both new trainers and fleet replacements. I hope FlyBy will become the premier provider of trainer and personal aircraft by offering great planes at the best prices. And who knows — maybe we'll even move into rotorcraft.

For an industry facing both a pilot shortage and an infrastructure gap, the timing feels right. Whether the EveryPlane can thread the needle between affordability and certification, where so many have tried and fallen short, remains to be seen. But McKinnon's clarity of purpose is striking. He's not trying to build a faster or flashier aeroplane, but rather the one that finally makes flying attainable.

FlyBy Enterprises is currently in the prototype phase. Pre-order information will be released in due course.

FlyBy Enterprises is building safe, robust, and affordable airplanes for everyone.