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So I've always been fascinated with planes since I was a kid, and now that I'm finally getting somewhere in life, I've been thinking about getting a pilot's license. However, I have a few questions and I was hoping that perhaps there were some pilots on Dakka who could give me an idea of what to expect. Main questions are

1. Exactly how expensive is it to get a private license to fly something like a Cessna or a similar single engined plane? I've heard quotes between 5-7 grand but I have no idea if that covers "hidden" expenses such as gas, physicals, insurance, renting a plane, or anything else I'm not thinking of.

2. Are there ways to "earn your money back" with a regular private license? I have a feeling most ways to earn a little bit of cash to help pay for flying would require some sort of commercial license, but I figured it was worth a shot to ask and see.

3. I'm considering moving out West to a state like Idaho or Montana, and was thinking of using a private pilot's license as a way to get back and forth from Kentucky to visit friends and family occasionally. Is it prohibitively expensive to do this sort of thing? Obviously it would cost more than a respective plane ticket on an airliner or driving, but I think it would be more relaxing than an airliner and a bit faster than just driving across the country.

4. Is there any good reading material that I can look at to get a good idea of what I'm in for? I'm on the FAA website right now and it's a bit confusing as to what exactly I need to do to get my license. I'd like it to be where by the time I'm finally taking the courses and spending time with the instructor, I at least have a basic grasp of what I'm going to be learning.


Kind of a shot in the dark I know, but I figured it was worth it to ask and see if anyone on here has experience. Thanks for looking guys.

Your best bet is to go to your nearest general aviation airport and go talk to a flight instructor. Plane rental rates vary from place to place, but the price usually includes fuel, insurance, and any maintenance. Legally, you can't make any money until you have a commercial license. The closest thing you can do is give people rides in exchange for them knocking out fuel costs. It's going to be expensive though.

I'm sure there are some pilots on here who can give you better advice than me, but here's my $0.02. Many moons ago, I took lessons. I never soloed, but I got to the point at which I could do unassisted landings. I really loved it, but after I started grad school I didn't have as much time or money. Now I have a family and REALLY don't have time or money, especially time.

Time and money really are the keys, and that's why I saw a lot of retired guys getting their licenses. Something to keep in mind is that flying isn't quite like driving a car. You have to fly regularly or you get rusty extremely quickly. This is important with regards to getting your license and what you do with it afterward. Those aforementioned retired guys could take multiple lessons each week, and so got much more out of them. I, on the other hand, was taking a few lessons a month (squeezing them in before work), and so I spent a good chunk of those lessons relearning stuff. It was very inefficient.

When I was flying, the minimum amount of hours you needed to get your license was 40, but my instructors warned me that realistically I might need 60 before I was *ready* to get my license. So keep that in mind. I had 20-something hours when I had to quit.

And here's the thing -- even if I had gotten my license, it'd be going to waste right now anyway. It's not something you dabble with and do once every few months. IIRC, there's a regulation that if you haven't flown within X number of days, you can't take passengers with you until you've completed Y amount of hours in the air.

So yeah, talk to a flight instructor at a local airport. I really loved flying, but it's something you have to go into with eyes wide open.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
1. Exactly how expensive is it to get a private license to fly something like a Cessna or a similar single engined plane? I've heard quotes between 5-7 grand but I have no idea if that covers "hidden" expenses such as gas, physicals, insurance, renting a plane, or anything else I'm not thinking of.

The cost can vary significantly, but $5-15k is probably a good estimate. The airplane rental cost is billed by the hour an includes fuel, insurance/physical/etc are a trivial expense compared to the cost of renting the plane.The biggest factors:

1) How fast you learn. There's a minimum number of hours required, but very few people do it in the absolute minimum. Anecdotal evidence suggests that if you can fly once a week or more you'll do it in fewer hours, if you drag it out over months/years it will take you more since you're constantly reviewing old stuff instead of learning new stuff.

2) What kind of plane you fly. For example, around here a Cessna 152 (a very small plane, expect to get very close to your instructor/passenger) costs about $75/hour to rent, a Cessna 172 with more interior space, modern instruments, etc, costs about $150/hour. So obviously if you're a fairly small guy and can fit into the 152 comfortably you'll save a lot of money.

3) Where you fly. I got mine at a mid-size commercial airport with a fair amount of airline traffic. On the good side it did a good job of making me comfortable with air traffic control and busy airspace (and making 737s wait in line behind you is funny!), but it did cost quite a bit more than doing it at a middle of nowhere airport because of the extra time spent getting in and out of the controlled area and off to a place where we could start working on training.

My final cost was about $15k and 80 hours of flight time, which might have been closer to $10k if I'd been at a middle of nowhere airport.

2. Are there ways to "earn your money back" with a regular private license? I have a feeling most ways to earn a little bit of cash to help pay for flying would require some sort of commercial license, but I figured it was worth a shot to ask and see.

Absolutely not. Doing any kind of flying for pay requires a commercial license (and that means a lot more training and flight hours once you get the private license), and if you break that rule the FAA will not be happy. The absolute most you can do is split the cost of a flight evenly between yourself and all of your passengers, assuming you are all going somewhere for a common purpose (and don't try to get clever with that, the FAA will just take your license away). So, if you want to fly to a 40k tournament with your friends you can cut the cost a bit, but you're never going to make any money.

3. I'm considering moving out West to a state like Idaho or Montana, and was thinking of using a private pilot's license as a way to get back and forth from Kentucky to visit friends and family occasionally. Is it prohibitively expensive to do this sort of thing? Obviously it would cost more than a respective plane ticket on an airliner or driving, but I think it would be more relaxing than an airliner and a bit faster than just driving across the country.

People do this. It will cost quite a bit more over that kind of distance, but it will probably be a lot more fun than an airline flight. The two biggest obstacles:

1) You'll need your own plane. In my experience rental companies won't let you take their plane outside of a ~500 mile radius without special permission, so if you want to make this kind of trip you'll need to buy your own plane. Expect $15-50k minimum cost (which you can get a loan for) for the plane itself, then about $5k a year for hangar space/maintenance/flying often enough to justify it/etc.

2) Weather. You're probably making that trip split over two days each way, and over that kind of time and distance weather can change considerably. As long as you aren't stupid the worst that can happen is that you'll end up grounded somewhere due to bad weather and have to take an airline flight home, but history is full of people who decided that they really had to be home for that business meeting, took off into bad weather, and killed themselves and all of their passengers. So understand that this will place some limits on when you can schedule these trips.

4. Is there any good reading material that I can look at to get a good idea of what I'm in for? I'm on the FAA website right now and it's a bit confusing as to what exactly I need to do to get my license. I'd like it to be where by the time I'm finally taking the courses and spending time with the instructor, I at least have a basic grasp of what I'm going to be learning.

The best thing to do is to look up flight schools in your area and go take an intro lesson. It will cost you about $1-200 and you can do it with no commitment to more lessons (they expect lots of people to come in and try it). That will give you an instructor to talk to and get your questions answered, and about 30 min to an hour of flying so you can see if you really like the idea.

Peregrine is spot on. I got about 35 hours of flight time, never soloed, but kept getting vertigo so I quit.

At least you're not looking to get a helo license. Those are prohibitively expensive, especially if you want turbine time.

My flying experience is all military, so I don't know exactly how it all works on the civilian side. I'm planning on going out at some point and doing the civilian testing and getting a few more solo hours to have my civilian private license, then look into the helo equivalent.

I'm curious if you can get a basic private license and then get an IFR ticket without going for a full commercial license? Of course, you could only apply it if the aircraft was IFR certified, which is even costlier, but it'd certainly cut down on weather related issues.

A buddy of mine has his own 152 which he's flown back and forth from his place on the skirts of London to the quieter parts of the GTA or Muskokas, so its definitely doable. Better with a float plane if you're going to cottage country, but that's a whole different ball of wax.

*Edit* That's a shame Kronk. A friend of mine on course would get flicker vertigo from the blades and end up sick at the end of all his flights. He could handle sustained 4G maneuvers, spins, and aerobatics, but the moment there's a rotor overhead, he goes green as his uniform.

 Blacksails wrote:
I'm curious if you can get a basic private license and then get an IFR ticket without going for a full commercial license? Of course, you could only apply it if the aircraft was IFR certified, which is even costlier, but it'd certainly cut down on weather related issues.

You can get the instrument rating without getting the commercial license, and many people do. And getting an approrpiate plane isn't too difficult, IIRC most "normal" planes meet the legal minimums and pretty much anything above a low-end trainer like a Cessna 152 has the GPS and autopilot to make it a reasonable plan.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
I'm curious if you can get a basic private license and then get an IFR ticket without going for a full commercial license? Of course, you could only apply it if the aircraft was IFR certified, which is even costlier, but it'd certainly cut down on weather related issues.

You can get the instrument rating without getting the commercial license, and many people do. And getting an approrpiate plane isn't too difficult, IIRC most "normal" planes meet the legal minimums and pretty much anything above a low-end trainer like a Cessna 152 has the GPS and autopilot to make it a reasonable plan.

Never thought of that, then again, I'm always amazed at how little you need in order to fly VFR anyways. The fact that its legal in certain zones to fly without a radio terrifies me.

Though if I was to have an IFR aircraft, I'd probably spend the money and get a decent set of avionics so I that I'd have options.

Maybe its something our OP could look into once he's got the basics. IFR isn't exactly exciting, but its damn handy to fall back on to.

And yes, getting the instrument rating will help a lot for long-distance travel, but it can only do so much. There's still a lot of weather that you just don't fly a small plane into unless you want to kill yourself without the insurance company ruling it a suicide, and that means accepting the fact that if you travel 1000 miles to go visit your family you might have a choice between waiting a few days to get home or buying a last-second airline ticket.

Never thought of that, then again, I'm always amazed at how little you need in order to fly VFR anyways. The fact that its legal in certain zones to fly without a radio terrifies me.

TBH it's no big deal. You're supposed to be flying by looking out the window anyway, and you have to watch for traffic since having a radio doesn't guarantee that anyone is using it effectively. Outside the traffic pattern the only thing having a radio does is let you call ATC and ask them to point out any traffic conflicts if they happen to have some spare time. And inside the traffic pattern, if everyone is doing what they're supposed to be doing, it should all work out just fine without any talking.

Now, there's no way I'd ever fly a plane without at least a handheld radio, but I'm not really counting on my fellow pilots doing anything useful to me with theirs.

Though if I was to have an IFR aircraft, I'd probably spend the money and get a decent set of avionics so I that I'd have options.

This is actually pretty straightforward with the cost of electronics going down so much lately. Basic IFR GPS and autopilot seem to be standard with every "normal" plane above the $15k range, and even getting brand new glass cockpit stuff is a lot more realistic than it used to be.

I guess I'm used to a reporting heavy style of VFR flying. Always on the look out though.

Admittedly, I know very little of the costs associated with flying, but it sounds reasonable to get a decent interior when you factor in the base cost of the aircraft.

Some of those new Garmin cockpits look pretty stellar.

 Blacksails wrote:
At least you're not looking to get a helo license. Those are prohibitively expensive, especially if you want turbine time.

My flying experience is all military, so I don't know exactly how it all works on the civilian side. I'm planning on going out at some point and doing the civilian testing and getting a few more solo hours to have my civilian private license, then look into the helo equivalent.

I'm curious if you can get a basic private license and then get an IFR ticket without going for a full commercial license? Of course, you could only apply it if the aircraft was IFR certified, which is even costlier, but it'd certainly cut down on weather related issues.

A buddy of mine has his own 152 which he's flown back and forth from his place on the skirts of London to the quieter parts of the GTA or Muskokas, so its definitely doable. Better with a float plane if you're going to cottage country, but that's a whole different ball of wax.

*Edit* That's a shame Kronk. A friend of mine on course would get flicker vertigo from the blades and end up sick at the end of all his flights. He could handle sustained 4G maneuvers, spins, and aerobatics, but the moment there's a rotor overhead, he goes green as his uniform.

No civilian training at all for you guys? Wow. Down here, with the naval pipeline being as backed up as it is, the very first thing you do is go off and learn to solo with a civilian instructor at a municipal airport of your choice before you even start API.

Heh, 1500 hours in a UH-60 and zero civilian time and zero fixed wing time. Fixed wing time doesn't really benefit you all that much when learning helicopters. Knowing how to fly an ILS theoretically was peanuts compared to actually doing it in a Bell 206 (TH-67).

Now, at Mother Rucker you could go get your CFI- rotary-wing after graduating instruments, but you just took the test. Does your time with the civilian instructor count for anything during flight training aside from the experience?

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:
Heh, 1500 hours in a UH-60 and zero civilian time and zero fixed wing time. Fixed wing time doesn't really benefit you all that much when learning helicopters. Knowing how to fly an ILS theoretically was peanuts compared to actually doing it in a Bell 206 (TH-67).

Now, at Mother Rucker you could go get your CFI- rotary-wing after graduating instruments, but you just took the test. Does your time with the civilian instructor count for anything during flight training aside from the experience?

Officially, it's Introductory Flight Screening, so I guess it theoretically serves some screening purpose, but everything you do during it gets covered again later on. Honestly, I think it's just there to keep guys who got aviation selected busy while waiting around for their API start date, which has been over two years for some unfortunates. Dinking around in a 172 for twenty hours, soloing in it, and passing the FAA knowledge test isn't that big of a hurdle. Nevertheless, since it's the very first step in the pipeline, everybody's got to do it.

Seaward wrote:
No civilian training at all for you guys? Wow. Down here, with the naval pipeline being as backed up as it is, the very first thing you do is go off and learn to solo with a civilian instructor at a municipal airport of your choice before you even start API.

Not required, not even a famil flight. Showed up for day 1 in Portage la Prairie for Primary Flight Training, and within two weeks was taking off in a Grob 120. That phase was only 20 something flights before you move on to turbines.

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:Heh, 1500 hours in a UH-60 and zero civilian time and zero fixed wing time. Fixed wing time doesn't really benefit you all that much when learning helicopters. Knowing how to fly an ILS theoretically was peanuts compared to actually doing it in a Bell 206 (TH-67).

Now, at Mother Rucker you could go get your CFI- rotary-wing after graduating instruments, but you just took the test. Does your time with the civilian instructor count for anything during flight training aside from the experience?

I had to fly about 120 hours fixed wing before I learned rotary. Everyone else in the training system has a fairly natural progression between fixed wing aircraft, but showing up for my rotary course was like learning how to crawl, walk, and run all over again, at the same time.

Fixed wing time helps with basic universal pilot skills, like a good crosscheck or area awareness, not to mention basic IFR air picture stuff.

You are not required to get your instrument ticket, but I strongly recommend you do. I don't fly on the civilian side, but from what I understand is a large percentage of the general aviation accidents are from non-instrument rated pilots going inadvertent imc.

Awesome thanks for all the advice guys. Sounds like I'm going to need to wait a while longer before seriously getting a license due to financial reasons, but I'll start reading up anyways.

Big thanks to Peregrine in particular, that was a really thorough answer