are you $BROKE$ as i am?

[flightstudent522]

just curious what other ppl are paying for their flight lessons--i'm paying 98$ per hour for CFI and plane rental in south carolina---is this expensive??? Also,what do you pay for ground school and where in the world are you located??

[unknown user]

I'm a CFII and ground instructor in the Baltimore-Washington area. Most of our flight schools out here charge around $40 per hour for flight instruction. Ground school costs are about $275 for a six week class (approx 40 hours) and this includes some materials (books, PTS, FAR/AIM).

Cost of aircraft rental depends mostly on the kind of plane you are flying. Most Cessna 172s rent for about $60-$110 per hour (wet rate). The newest aircraft are the most expensive.

[Chapster]

I am so spoiled...I own an airline Coral Reef Airways, have a brand new Piper Seneca 5 parked alongside my Beechjet in my private garage, and receive free flight instruction from the Chief Pilot of my airline.... eek! and then I woke up and realized that 9/11 was real and it drove the cost of flying up by an average of $15-20 bucks while flight instructors all rased their rate by $5-10 bucks.

I was fortunate to earn my private in a 172 at Front Rage Airport in Denver, CO when rates were $40 for the plane and $25 for the instrutor. Now that I am in Detroit, the cheapest I can find is $50 dry for a Cherokee and $95 dry for a brand new 172...what a bummer...I need to go back to sleep and dream about where I am gonna take my brand new Seneca 5.....ahhhhhhhhh

VISA...It's everywhere you wanna be

[TriPacerTX]

I guess I am lucky! I pay $25 per hour for dual in my own airplane with an EXCELLENT CFII with 30 years of experience. Located in north central Texas.

[Todd]

The rate in the midsouth is $20 for the instructor and a range between $65 for a C152 or $105 for an Arrow (wet). I did it with a self study program so I didn't pay a dime in ground school, but about $100 for books and study materials. If you ask someone who took lessons back in the 70s it was roughly a third of the price. In other words, it is actually getting cheaper relative to average salaries and costs of living. Most of what I have read predicts between $4k and $6k to learn how to fly so what you are describing sounds reasonable. Did someone tell you it would be cheap?

[flightstudent522]

No, Todd, no one told me it would be cheap. I expected about 5k to get my private, but the thing is I am only 18 and starting community college in the fall so I have little time to work thus, little cash flow. I don't know how to afford 400$ a month for my hobbie. I have been seeing that a lot of students are already training and getting time into their logbook--how are they doing/affording this??? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Todd]

Hang out at your local airports as often as possible. Post a sign on the wall offering pilot owners at the FBO to wash their planes in exchange for money OR flight time in their bird (with your instructor of course). I'd let a student taker mine up for an hour for a good washing (no touch and gos though). This is what my brother in law does and he logs quite a few hours this way. The important thing is to network, network, network. Meet pilots, but don't beg them. I have a few around the field that I avoid due to their begging posture. Treat it as a transaction and find a way to make it benefit the aircraft owner as well. You can find some good de-greaser and other cleaning materials at www.sportys.com

You could also talk to local flight schools and find out if they are interested in giving you free lessons in exchange for you giving their students free lessons after you get your CFI. Talk to the owner, be professional, and make a proposal that's been well thought out with timelines, and have a nice little proposal all written out. This is how people get money for start up businesses from banks and investors.

Go to the AOPA website and read the articles they have all grouped together in a section for flying cheaper.

Good luck! If you're near the midsouth let me know and I'd be happy to help.

[flightstudent522]

Thanks for your great advice Todd! I do spend a lot of my free time loitering at the local airporttrying to get any information that I can-now I know how to do it in a way that is beneficial to the pilots and myself. Thank you again!

[Frodo]

Check out the Civil Air Patrol. I was a member back in the early 80s and flew an L-19 for $20.00 an hour. It was on floats in the summer and skis in the winter. You can't beat that for pure fun.

Very few squadrons have anything fancier than a C-172 these days, but I belive that they have good rates for flying.

If you do join, however, I hope that you will also get involved with all aspects of CAP.

[Jcarson]

$145/hr in a C172 - Of course I'm in Tortola, British Virgin islands so one does not have many choices!

[Tazzy]

In my area (SouthWestern Ontario)
A Cessna 172 with instructor will cost around $165/hr (canadian funds).
Not terribly cheap.
Ground school is around $550cnd

I did get a lucky break in my training however.

The local flying club had a fantastic idea, they had a Raffle for a PPL!
They sold around 1000 tickets at $40 each, and the grand prize was basically a limited scholarship to get your PPL.

The prize was limited to $7135 (which would not cover the full cost of getting your PPL unless you somehow did it all with the bare minimum hrs). But at the time I was in 2nd year college, pretty much broke, and all I could afford was one $40 ticket.... almost did not buy it either.

There were also some stringent regulations attached to the prize. For instance, if you quit your training for any reason, you forefit the remainder of the prize, if you start causing problems, being beligerant, etc you get kicked out of the club and forefit the prize (it was all quite reasonable however, and the rules were there to protect the club, its members and the prize winner). You are also responsible for your own funding if you go over the prize max of $7135.

If you already had your PPL or higher license, you could put the prize $$ towards new ratings, fuel for your plane if you had one etc.

I will remember the prize draw for the rest of my life, the grand prize was drawn last, and when I heard my name and address called out I was in shock. My hands were literally shaking as I moved to the front to show them my ticket. The draw was done at a bar that one of the members owned, I had free drinks all night

At the time I knew little about the flying club, its members, all I knew is that I've wanted to fly ever since I was a little kid, lying down on some grass watching military student pilots practicing maneouvers in some sort of prop trainers (I had no idea which models the trainers were). But it was all fascinating and exciting to watch.
The club, instructors, its members all turned out to be fantastic people, I was instantly drawn in to the aviation world

Now I was given a shot at it, and I took it.
I combined my college schedule and flight training, and I got my PPL in 53hrs (5 months). I have no special talent for flying, I soloed at 13hrs, county solo at around 22 hrs... I had a lot of ups and downs, there were good times and there were bad times..... but in the end it was worth it

The PPL cost me around $1500 after the extra hrs and taxes kicked in (the prize was calculated for a Canadian min hrs of 47 total).

I also gaveup motorcycling so that I can focus myself on flying. I did lots of research into which headset would work well for me (LightSpeed Aviation has some fantastic deals on their older model ANR headsets), I got myself a Garmin 295 GPS (really cheap on eBay, the gps also works great in my car) and a hand-held radio for ATIS and "Just In Case" backup for the aircraft.

I must say I am glad to no end that the flying club had this raffle.

From the club's point, the raffle is also a great idea for them.
They grossed around $40,000 in ticket sales, the PPL main prize was limited to $7135, which at cost to them was probably around $4000, the other prizes were also of little cost to them (other prizes were some local scenic flights, free groundschool etc).

I also know that from the raffle the club was able to get a new engine for one of their Tomahawk's and overhaul another C172.

At any rate, I hope that other clubs follow with similar ideas and give some guy/gal a lucky shot at their dreams

Have a good one guys

[DouglasMcArthur]

In Tifton, it costs $72.00 per hour to rent a 1979 Cessna Skyhawk 172 and $60.00 per hour to rent a Cessna 152 Aerobat. The darn prices keep going up.

[carddriver]

Just started at AirNav: KHFD - Hartford-Brainard Airport @ $155/hr. (172N)

20hrs paid by my employer, the remainder by me.

Am I a fool?

[Nicholas Mosher]

I have 10hrs flight time for my PPL so far. I do all the groundschool/bookwork myself which really isn't that difficult. I'm training 1hr/wk, but I'm going to start 2-3hrs/wk pretty soon here. My first Solo is coming up in the next few weeks...

I'm currently paying $90/1hr lesson which includes pre/post flight one-on-one Q&A for pretty much as long as I want. Broken down, it's $65/hr (wet) for the C152-II, and $25/hr for my Instructor.

My Instructor is a retired military and corporate pilot with over 10k hours, so I feel real comfortable with him. I'm also lucky that I only live 5min from the airport I train at (ORE).

To answer the original question, yes, I too am broke...

[Av8trxx]

http://www.avscholars.com/AvScholars...ning/index.htm