The only time I think about how much it costs to fly is when I am on the ground when I CAN'T fly. If I put the pencil to it, it just doesn't come out and sometimes scares me! It took me 7 months, $4000, and 58 hours back in '94 to become a pilot learning in someone else's aircraft. Once I got that noisey instructor out of the cockpit and into my own plane...man what a world it opened up. I love to fly and sometimes I let the instructor ride with me...it helps with the insurance policy! It also helps that the BOSS has no problem with the flying even though she does not fly much.
It took me a while to understand WHY people fly. So if it is something you really want to do...the sky is the limit.
Maybe our paths will cross somewhere out there in the wild blue....but not too close.

I passed my check ride on 11/11/07 here are my costs. Written test, check ride both passed on first try with 88 hours.


Medical 85.00
Ground school 200.00
Books, flight bag & supplies 360.00


Sterling Flight school 7429.00 (172) 90 hour + 28 for instructor
Endeavor Avaiation 1421.50 (172) 95/120 hour
Texas tail draggers 462.50 7GCBC 120 dual - traded web work for hours

Check ride 400.00

Total at this point about 10,400.00


Garmin 296 Used 900.00
AOPA membership 39.00
Bose headsets. 700.00
I-Com A24 radio 270.00
Maui Jim sunglasses 270.00

Add another 2,200 for the good stuff.

Note I was ready to take my check right with Sterling flight school, but the plane broke and my project ended in Boston. I then did some tail wheel work just for fun. The large number of hours at Endeavor Aviation were due to the check ride being set a month out. Had I been able to finish in Boston as planned it would have save about 1500.00 on the above numbers.

I'll be brief, but this is how it happened for me.

Having the plane pretty much made the deal. We bought a 140 from a local CFI (who happened to be a patient of mine) who said he would teach me to fly when I was ready. Joke was on him, I had no desire to learn to fly myself, having a plane and a competent pilot of a husband (or husband of a pilot) was good enough for me.

Ground school was offered at our local airport for $200. Couldn't pass up a deal like that. Once I started I was repeatedly reminded that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE at the airport knew I was in ground school and was aiming to get my pilot's license.

So I am kind of a nerd in a bookish/learned sense; that is who I am, how I go about things and how I got to be where I be. So I did all the studying pretty much on my own with a learned sounding board as a bed mate.

The flying was a treat and a privilege, still is. The CFI who sold us the plane got me to my first solo and then I had to augment his generosity with the only other CFI in town who could fly with me in our 140. He was kind of a dud. I paid him $40 an hour and flew with my husband as much as I could although he only became proficient in the right seat after I got my ticket. Better late then never. But I got through what I had to get through to get signed off to go through the next step.

I haven't sat down and added it all up, but it was pretty reasonable, and the trick was, as has been stated, owning your own plane. While I "could" have, I never "would" have done it any other way.

It was 6 months and 75 hours of flying before my checkride which was passed without a hitch. All tailwheel time. I have never, and never will fly a nosewheel if Hammer/Mr. Snoopydoc has anything to say about it.

It is such a treat to fly and I am looking so forward to flying and learning so much more.

hooznext wrote: I joined a local flying club, 25+/- members with two Cherokee's @ $70.00/HR wet + $65.00 a month membership fee, instructor charges $25.00 an hour

Let's see... When I started an airplane was $6.00 an hour rental and I think five bucks an hour for instructor. But, I bought my '51 PA-18 for $5,000, rebuilt airframe and engine myself, and learned to fly in that airplane when I was 16, so total cost was a couple hundred bucks instruction and maybe a hundred more for incidentals, and about $1,000 more into the airplane to rebuild it and make it flyable.

Gump

GumpAir wrote:

hooznext wrote: I joined a local flying club, 25+/- members with two Cherokee's @ $70.00/HR wet + $65.00 a month membership fee, instructor charges $25.00 an hour

Let's see... When I started an airplane was $6.00 an hour rental and I think five bucks an hour for instructor. But, I bought my '51 PA-18 for $5,000, rebuilt airframe and engine myself, and learned to fly in that airplane when I was 16, so total cost was a couple hundred bucks instruction and maybe a hundred more for incidentals, and about $1,000 more into the airplane to rebuild it and make it flyable.

Gump

my god, how old are you???

snoopydoc wrote:

GumpAir wrote:

hooznext wrote: I joined a local flying club, 25+/- members with two Cherokee's @ $70.00/HR wet + $65.00 a month membership fee, instructor charges $25.00 an hour

Let's see... When I started an airplane was $6.00 an hour rental and I think five bucks an hour for instructor. But, I bought my '51 PA-18 for $5,000, rebuilt airframe and engine myself, and learned to fly in that airplane when I was 16, so total cost was a couple hundred bucks instruction and maybe a hundred more for incidentals, and about $1,000 more into the airplane to rebuild it and make it flyable.

Gump

my god, how old are you???

Put it this way when they made dirt....they asked Gump what color it should be.

snoopydoc wrote:my god, how old are you???

Not that old...

But there are days I feel myself starting that downhill slide.

In high school gas was 25 cents a gallon. A new Toyota was $1995, and was competing against the Ford Pinto. A Cessna 150 rented for I think $6 an hour. Maybe a bit more, can't remember exactly, because I didn't spent much time in rental airplanes. But it wasn't much. Though when making $1.35 an hour, five bucks an hour for the instructor was a lot.

Gump

GumpAir wrote:

snoopydoc wrote:my god, how old are you???

Not that old...

But there are days I feel myself starting that downhill slide.

In high school gas was 25 cents a gallon. A new Toyota was $1995, and was competing against the Ford Pinto. .

Gump

And remember we laughed at those that said gas would be .50 cents. Oh and a VW was $1350.00 any color you wanted.

Some of us don't live in California, and aren't used to those prices. I'm not quite 50, and remember most of what Gump say's.

I am glad that I am not old enough to remember those prices. Of course it may just be my fading memory.

flyer

I'm in the group to encourage that it can be done on the cheap. I finished my private in 40.4 hours in 1997. I flew an average of once very 15 days (some dry spells). I read everything I could get my hands on, I showed up prepared, I "chair flew" and was very driven to succeed. Like someone else who posted, I used the Gleim study materials to practice for my "written".

I also had an instructor who was supportive of getting me through in minimal time. I was hungry for information. I remember firing off questions while taxiing one afternoon after which my instructor asked "You actually read the book before coming out here don't you?"

I learned in a C152. My instructor once scolded me for looking in the window of a C172. Told me he'd save me about $800 by keeping me away from that plane and then checking me out the day after I took my check ride (which he did).

For those who say "well that was back then...": Airspace is identical, the planes are identical (I'm talking about the same tail numbers still flying around which were hardly new at the time. Hell one of the planes in my first log book now belongs to one of my former students) and other than a period of time post 9/11 when we had to thread the TFR needle nothing is different.

I've since become a CFII and had three students under 45 hours, several at the national average and one who pushed 100 - it's quite dependant on student motivation.

I had a student who was a master seargent in the Army. I could have taken a nap in the pattern when he had 4.5 hours. Soloed him at 8.5, FULLY qualified. He had zero flight experience when he showed up. I reckon that people who get shot at for a living are pretty good at following instructions even when they are under stress. He always did exactly what I told him to do at exactly the time I told him to do it, even if his hands were shaking. He owns his own C172 now and is building a Zenith.

If you want it bad enough you can succeed IF you can find an instructor who isn't just building hours.