Didn't really know where I could post this... I am new to the Daytona Beach area and looking to earn my private. There are plenty of schools in the area though most have proven to be a bit over priced. 20,000 for my private seems a bit excessive. Just looking for some local info, all help would be greatly appreciated and I will be more than happy to buck some rivets for all who help.
Van's Air Force
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Flight Instruction
- Thread starter Surfdoc
- Start date
Auburntsts
Well Known Member
First off, Welcome! $20K is high so make sure what you are getting quoted is for the rating you actually want --ie Private, Recreational, or Sport, and not for a zero-time to Commercial-Instrument package, etc. You should be able to get your Private for around $10K but there's a lot of variables so that is just ballpark. Check out this link to help you make the right decisions: http://www.aopa.org/letsgoflying/
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Jamie
Well Known Member
I am a big proponent of buying an airplane to get your private, particularly a C-150 (assuming you and an instructor would fit). There are a lot of nice C-150s out there that have been cared for. In fact, my neighbor purchased an IFR certified 150 and did his private and instrument in it, then sold the airplane for more than he paid for it.
Right now with the depressed airplane market it may be time to go for the 150.
Right now with the depressed airplane market it may be time to go for the 150.
Thankyou
Thankyou both for the insight... These schools around here seem to just "pump" out the students, the more I hear the more wary I get. I would love to purchase my own plane, but am leaning towards a taildragger. Something economical and something that doesn't scare away instructors. I have an RV6 in the family and want to be able to transition into easily. Thanks again for the info guys!
Thankyou both for the insight... These schools around here seem to just "pump" out the students, the more I hear the more wary I get. I would love to purchase my own plane, but am leaning towards a taildragger. Something economical and something that doesn't scare away instructors. I have an RV6 in the family and want to be able to transition into easily. Thanks again for the info guys!
dmaib
Well Known Member
Check out your local EAA chapters. I am sure the chapter at Spruce Creek has a list of instructors. You should have no problem finding a tailwheel instructor through an EAA chapter. Having your own airplane and finding an experienced instructor should be an economical route to your PPL. Good luck!
Ideally find an older instructor that has been at it for awile and is not there just to build time. IMHO these schools that are pilot mills are turning out very marginal pilots. Add to the fact that a lot of the instructors are products of the same school just perpetuates the problem. I would much rather see you find a good stick and rudder guy with an older well maintained airplane. The new generation is all enamored with new airplanes with glass cockpits and only learn how to drive an airplane not fly it. Also most pilots will tell you to go right in with an instrument rating right after you finish your PPL. Do yourself a favor and do a good aerobatic course then spend a few hundred hours flying VFR. This will get you your tailwheel endorsement and also make you a cut above the average pilot. Unfortunatly insurance is the big roadblock for learning in a taildragger. Insurance on a RV6 isn't too bad even for a low time taiwheel pilot and goes down substantually at around the 100 hour mark. Don
If it's feasible for you, finding the right instructor (beforehand), and buying a tailwheel airplane to learn in is a good option. I bought a Champ with zero hours and flew with an instructor who did it for the love of it. I purposefully steered clear of the flight school route.
You can get insurance - I think mine was $1500/yr. when I first started 7 yrs ago. My instructor was a named pilot on my policy for no additional charge.
I'm very glad I learned to fly this way. Learning good stick and rudder skills is best done at the very beginning. You can learn about glass cockpits, GPS approaches, etc. at any time down the road should you desire. Ditto the comments about basic acro training.
Of course, aircraft ownership pitfalls apply and major maintenance issues can set you back on your training. Mine had a bad spar. You can never invest too much in finding/using the RIGHT person to do a pre-buy on an airplane, especially an antique/classic type. Good luck.
You can get insurance - I think mine was $1500/yr. when I first started 7 yrs ago. My instructor was a named pilot on my policy for no additional charge.
I'm very glad I learned to fly this way. Learning good stick and rudder skills is best done at the very beginning. You can learn about glass cockpits, GPS approaches, etc. at any time down the road should you desire. Ditto the comments about basic acro training.
Of course, aircraft ownership pitfalls apply and major maintenance issues can set you back on your training. Mine had a bad spar. You can never invest too much in finding/using the RIGHT person to do a pre-buy on an airplane, especially an antique/classic type. Good luck.
Sunrise aviation
I got my PPL at Sunrise Aviation in Ormond Beach. It was the best deal I could find in the area and is a part 141 school. Looking at their website (http://www.flysunriseaviation.com/home.html) it looks like they may have changed their offerings but give them a call, they were great to work with. I learned in a 152 there (N757HA & N4653L) if they are still there let me know.
I got my PPL at Sunrise Aviation in Ormond Beach. It was the best deal I could find in the area and is a part 141 school. Looking at their website (http://www.flysunriseaviation.com/home.html) it looks like they may have changed their offerings but give them a call, they were great to work with. I learned in a 152 there (N757HA & N4653L) if they are still there let me know.
dhall_polo
Well Known Member
PPL costs
Around 55 hours is typical for Private Pilot. So for typical rental+instructor rates hitting around $150 these days, that's $8250. I'd estimate that 2/3 of that amount is paying for av-gas and instructor, which are unavoidable costs. The remaining goes to paying fixed operational costs, and the owner of the plane is most assuredly not getting rich off that.
Buying your own airplane does make a lot of sense if you plan to buy anyway and don't mind keeping it for a year or two. You could easily earn your PPL in the first 3-4 months. Much more important than thinking you'll save a buck or two is the fact that you'll be much more likely to fly more often. The best thing about owning a plane is that the operational cost per hour gets cheaper the more you fly.
Now is also a great time to buy if you are lucky enough to consider that.
Around 55 hours is typical for Private Pilot. So for typical rental+instructor rates hitting around $150 these days, that's $8250. I'd estimate that 2/3 of that amount is paying for av-gas and instructor, which are unavoidable costs. The remaining goes to paying fixed operational costs, and the owner of the plane is most assuredly not getting rich off that.
Buying your own airplane does make a lot of sense if you plan to buy anyway and don't mind keeping it for a year or two. You could easily earn your PPL in the first 3-4 months. Much more important than thinking you'll save a buck or two is the fact that you'll be much more likely to fly more often. The best thing about owning a plane is that the operational cost per hour gets cheaper the more you fly.
Now is also a great time to buy if you are lucky enough to consider that.
AndyRV7
Well Known Member
I agree whole heartedly with a lot of this comment. I finished my PPL in August last year (after more hours than I care to admit). In spite of my pragmatic nature AND all my research, I still ended up with an instructor I HATED. Not personally, but I think he was bad at being an instructor. It was just chance that he was standing there on day-one and got signed on as my secondary. Then, the day after my solo, my primary left to take a job. I gritted my teeth and kept this other guy until the end, but I really hated the fact that I felt like I was not getting what I was paying for. Yet, at that point, my options were limited.
Fast forward to today. I am now logging hours and building my experience (and filling in all the skills I think I should have honed a little more as a student). But I am also getting tail wheel training from a fulltime instructor, with thousands of hours and a lot of it in the bush, in a J3 Cub, and the experience is so much better than my PPL training. I feel like I am correcting a lot of bad habits I acquired early on. I attribute this to the quality of the trainer, not necessarily the type of training (though some might argue otherwise).
A lot of this might sound good in theory to you at this point, but if you take nothing away from this, look for an experienced instructor. Somebody that instructs because they like to teach, not because they are logging hours for a new career. This is going to be much easier said than done, but well worth the effort if you can accomplish it. If you end up at a school with a lot of instructors logging time for themselves, you are likely going to be taught to pass the required tests, but not how to be a good pilot. Maybe this is the goal for a lot of places. Afterall, the PPL might be argued to be a ticket to go and start learning for yourself. But I would argure that just because you are trying to cross a particular finish line, doesn't mean you should settled for lower quality help along the way. You are going to be paying virtually the same money regardless of who sits in the other seat.
One other thing I will mention. Different parts of the country price the service differently. Not much you can do about. But you will also see that some schools only have a newer, glass panel type of fleet. They are going to charge you more in relative terms for that type of plane. And that is going to add up. My school had several 172P models from the late 70's to the early 80's. They were $30-$40 cheaper than the R and S models they also had in the flightline. I trained in the P models because I didn't want to pay more per hour for a plane that had a newer airframe or fancier avionics. Just something else to consider when you look around. You might be able to find a school with an older Cherokee or Warrior, maybe even a C152, versus a G1000 Skyhawk SP fleet.
Good luck. Getting my PPL was one of the top handful of accomplishments in my life, and well worth the effort.
At those rates it should be a little cheaper than that. Don't forget all the time is not dual. There is a lot of solo time in there.
Capflyer
Well Known Member
Flying Club
Many often overlook the advantages of joining a flying club. There are lots of them and many will take on students. To give an example, in my flying club you would pay $20 more for the aircraft per Tach hour plus around $20/Tach hr for one of our instructors. Using one of our C172's, it comes in around $50/ Hobbs hr less than the FBO/School on the field. Not only do you get instruction from stable instructors who are also club members but you also have the added enjoyment of being in the club. That $50/hr difference will be made up many times over the initiation or buy-in cost of joining a flying club.
For those who already have their PPL, CAP is also a good organization to join. After one year of membership you can use a CAP IP at no charge and a very inexpensive well maintained CAP aircraft to work on advanced ratings like Commercial, Instrument, CFI, & CFII.
Many often overlook the advantages of joining a flying club. There are lots of them and many will take on students. To give an example, in my flying club you would pay $20 more for the aircraft per Tach hour plus around $20/Tach hr for one of our instructors. Using one of our C172's, it comes in around $50/ Hobbs hr less than the FBO/School on the field. Not only do you get instruction from stable instructors who are also club members but you also have the added enjoyment of being in the club. That $50/hr difference will be made up many times over the initiation or buy-in cost of joining a flying club.
For those who already have their PPL, CAP is also a good organization to join. After one year of membership you can use a CAP IP at no charge and a very inexpensive well maintained CAP aircraft to work on advanced ratings like Commercial, Instrument, CFI, & CFII.
tomhanaway
Well Known Member
I finally got my PPL last year after lessons on and off for over 20 years. I had both good and bad instructors but more time builders than anything else. It happened again when I decided to finally finish this one last thing. The instructor actually admitted that he only wanted to build hours and really hated what he was doing.
I felt the whole cycle starting again.
This time I was a little smarter. I asked at the school which examiners actually gave the practical exams for PPL. I got two names, looked up their phone #'s and called them. I explained that I was 60 years old, my history of not completing the ppl and whom, based on the different students they took for checkrides, would they recommend.
I was given the name of a local school teacher in his 50's that loved to fly, was easy going, and could care less about building hours because he had a job and wouldn't be going anywhere.
What a difference. Going to fly became fun, although still work, and I passed my ppl checkride last summer.
go for it.
Tom
I felt the whole cycle starting again.
This time I was a little smarter. I asked at the school which examiners actually gave the practical exams for PPL. I got two names, looked up their phone #'s and called them. I explained that I was 60 years old, my history of not completing the ppl and whom, based on the different students they took for checkrides, would they recommend.
I was given the name of a local school teacher in his 50's that loved to fly, was easy going, and could care less about building hours because he had a job and wouldn't be going anywhere.
What a difference. Going to fly became fun, although still work, and I passed my ppl checkride last summer.
go for it.
Tom
Thanks all for the help and info. Turns out one of my neighbors is an instructor for Sunrise, though he is pretty young, 22 or 23. Dont know how comfortable I am with that. I have been flying with "OL" timers all my life and they seem much more in tune. G let me know what warehouse you are in and where exactly it is, I will be more than happy to buck rivets for you.
I'm on the verge of finishing my private for what will be less than $6,000. Found a great self-employed CFI. Joined a non-equity flying club that costs $41/tach hour for a C172 (dry) and did the ground school on my own to the satisfaction of my CFI's expectations. Best part about it is that I have been able to completely set my own schedule, and I get service like no FBO based school could likely offer. Took me the better part of a year to get it together, but it has been well worth it - financially and otherwise.
If I was starting over, I think Tom's advice on finding a good instructor is a great idea. Age of the instructor does not seem to make much difference, I know good and not so good instructors of all ages. I'm not so keen on the idea of buying an airplane to learn in just to cut cost. Ownership is expensive, hangar or tie-down, annuals, taxes, fees and insurance plus any maintance needed and you will need some or a lot of it. Don't buy a plane without having at least $5K set aside for M&R. Look into a flying club, the cost will be spread out and often one of the members is an A&P and that really reduces cost.
