8 Tower Road · Glenville, NY
Flight Training at Schenectady County Airport (KSCH)
We are based at Schenectady County Airport in Glenville, New York — ten minutes from downtown Schenectady, fifteen from Clifton Park and Niskayuna, and thirty from Albany.
Where you learn to fly shapes what kind of pilot you become. A student trained only at a quiet uncontrolled field is a nervous radio operator; a student trained only in a busy Class C environment never learns to make decisions without being told what to do. KSCH gives you both.
SCCC hangars · South endSince 1927
About the Airport
KSCH has been an active airfield since 1927, the year Charles Lindbergh landed here on his national tour. The New York Air National Guard has flown from the field since 1949. It still carries a genuine mix of traffic — student aircraft, corporate jets and the ski-equipped LC-130s that fly the Antarctic and Greenland missions all use the same pattern, so you learn to fit into a real operating environment from your earliest lessons.
Five Star Flight operates from the SCCC hangars at the south end of the field: four fully equipped hangars and a dedicated briefing room, so ground lessons and weather days still move your training forward.
Practice areas and beyond
Where You Will Actually Fly
Two practice areas sit within a few minutes of the field, both over flat open farmland — which is exactly what you want when you are learning stalls and steep turns and would rather not be worrying about terrain at the same time.
The northwest practice area runs between the Great Sacandaga Lake and the city of Amsterdam, with the Mohawk River as an obvious navigational reference. The northeast area sits near Saratoga Lake.
Once you start cross-country work the terrain changes character quickly. The Adirondacks to the north and the Catskills to the south give you real mountain flying experience, and commercial students routinely fly south toward New York, into some of the busiest airspace in the world. Instructors will sometimes take students down the Hudson River Corridor — an experience most pilots never get.
Your logbook
Regional Airports You’ll Fly To
Flight training is measured partly in the number of different airports you have landed at, and this is the list your training will take you through — short fields, soft fields, towered fields and international airports, all within reach of KSCH.
Local
Within 25 nm- NY0Fulton County
- 5B2Saratoga County
- ALBAlbany International
- 4B0South Albany
Local
Beyond 25 nm- GFLFloyd Bennett Memorial
- 1B1Columbia County
- NY1Kline KillSoft-field practice
- DDHWilliam Morse StateInstrument training
Cross-country
Beyond 50 nm- RMEGriffiss International
- 4B6Ticonderoga
- BAFWestfield-Barnes
- SWFStewart International
- POUHudson Valley Regional
- N66Oneonta
Cross-country
Beyond 100 nm · Commercial training- GONGroton-New London
- BDRBridgeport/Sikorsky
- ITHIthaca Tompkins
- ELMElmira-Corning
- MHTManchester Boston
- ASHNashua Boire Field
- PBGPlattsburgh International
- BTVBurlington International
Drive times
Getting Here from Across the Capital Region
Most of our students drive between fifteen and forty minutes.
- Schenectady10 min
- Niskayuna15 min
- Clifton Park15 min
- Amsterdam20 min
- Latham20 min
- Colonie25 min
- Albany30 min
- Troy30 min
- Ballston Spa30 min
- Saratoga Springs35 min
If you are weighing us against a school closer to Albany International, it is worth knowing that training at a quieter field usually costs less — not in hourly rate but in Hobbs time, because you are not spending fifteen minutes of every lesson holding for airline traffic.