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AJ Dorizas

AJ Dorizas

AJ Dorizas ran operations at a flight school before he founded Huckleberry Aeroworks. Now he brokers aircraft leases for schools full time, sitting in the middle layer between operators and investor lessors that he says the industry needed and never built. He also served on the ASTM F37 committee, the group that helps write light sport standards, so he watched the MOSAIC rule take shape from inside.

Professional Background

  • Flight School Operations: Ran operations at a flight school before moving to the financing side
  • Founder, Huckleberry Aeroworks: Brokers aircraft leases for flight schools full time
  • ASTM F37 Committee: Contributed to the committee that helps write light sport aircraft standards
  • Paid by Lessors, Not Schools: He is compensated by the investor lessors, which makes the brokerage service free to schools — a fact he states plainly on air

Areas of Expertise

  • Aircraft Leasing Structures: Hourly versus fixed monthly, and when each fits a school’s season and size
  • Fleet Planning: Working backward from training capacity rather than aircraft count
  • Lessor Relationships: Building relational equity with an investor lessor over time to improve terms
  • Alternative Financing: Connecting smaller schools with private aircraft owners using revenue shares and hourly structures borrowed from business aviation
  • MOSAIC and Light Sport: The certification shift and what it means for the next decade of training fleets

Key Numbers He Shared on Air

  • Under 40 hours a month, own the airplane: Low utilization means the asset belongs on your balance sheet, not in a monthly obligation
  • Lease when demand spikes: Leasing lets a school ride a demand wave without waiting on a purchase
  • 60/40 and 70/30: The lease-to-own splits he sees at high-performing schools nationwide, weighted toward leased
  • Past 30 airplanes, go fixed: The administrative burden of hourly accounting becomes extreme at that size
  • Real lease numbers: Roughly $7,500 a month for a brand new 172; an example structure around $5,000 fixed, or a $4,200 minimum plus about $90 per hour above it

Key Insights for Flight School Owners

  • Be ahead of the plane: The same discipline taught in the cockpit, applied to fleet planning — most fleet decisions get made under pressure, at last-minute prices
  • You are not buying airplanes, you are buying training capacity: The question is how many students you want to support and how many CFIs you want to employ
  • Mixed fleets carry a quiet cost: Five airplane types means five systems, a parts inventory that covers everything and nothing, and students re-learning airplanes instead of building skill
  • Your aircraft type is brand identity: Whether you are a Cessna school or a Cirrus school changes who you attract
  • Stay with your lessor: Switching constantly burns relational equity the same way jumping insurance brokerages every year hurts your rates
  • Watch the Rotax power band: Roughly 4,500 to 6,000 RPM versus 2,000 to 3,000 on a legacy trainer is a real adjustment for a student stepping into a first job

Episodes featuring AJ Dorizas