Learning to fly, or thinking of learning? Post your questions, comments and experiences here

Moderator: AndyR

#1817498
This thread is so informative, Thanks to all for putting this together. I am planning to embark on my flying journey in the next couple months and all this info you have provided is exactly what I been looking for :)
I live in Kent (London suburbs) so the flying clubs in South east (Biggins Hill) would work for me. Any thoughts/suggestions/feedback is much appreciated.
I have a full time job in London that I dont wish to leave anytime soon. Learning to fly would be a dream coming true and getting PPL is the only aim...so far :D

thanks.
Ajay
#1822163
Ajay,

Glad you’re looking at joining the club!

I can highly recommend Stapleford and an instructor called Sue. I drove 1h30 mins to get there and spent the day there usually doing 2 or 3 lessons.

In the end did my skills test at 45h50 and then went on to do my night rating there too.

Now looking at MEIR later this year with Stapleford.

Don’t limit yourself to the local area, find the school and instructor that fits your way of learning best and go from there.

Any advice needed, please get in touch!

Luke
#1844420
egbgnewbie wrote:What a great post this has been (until mine, of course) - I found that when I started out, information is both plentiful and also really not that useful since aviation is such a huge area to try to research.

I started out wanting to become an airline pilot (this is still the ambition) but spent too long working out how to get from nothing to being in an A320 - which is almost impossible to research! I decided to get my PPL done first and so below is the basics of what it cost me.

I learned at Leicester with a brilliant instructor - a guy who if you're s*** at flying, he'll tell you. Meaning I got my licence with 46 hours and 45 minutes on the clock - any problems with my flying were very quickly ironed out by my instructor :lol:

(Edit)


Hi, that was useful. Did you train with the Leicester Aero Club at Leicester Airport? That's where I'm thinking of starting this year as I live only a few miles away.
#1856315
I found this thread very useful for making a budget and as I love a good spreadsheet here are my figures.

Aircraft Hire (PA28 Cherokee 140) - £6,038.50
Tuition - £1,425.00
Total - £7,463.50

Club Fee - £60.00
Landing Fees - £91.30
Medical Class 2 - £120.00
Ground Exams x9 - £170.00
FRTOL - £105.00
PPL test - £120.00
Licence Application - £196.00
Total - £862.30

Total - £8,325.80

Skydemon (with plates) - £337.00
Learning materials, charts, tools - £627.43
David Clark 13-4 headset - £349.95
SkyEcho2 - £499.00
Total - £1,813.38

Total - £10,139.18

Travel 2145 miles (62hr24m) - £965.25
Wear & tear - £536.25
Total - £1,501.50

Total - £11,640.68

Aircraft hire was largely done in the same Piper PA28 Cherokee 140 although typically for exam day I ended up in a different Cherokee with different layout of instruments and controls due to service issues. Not nice when your already nervous. I did have 2 hours in a piper arrow that was £50 more per hour too.

I separated the club fees, landing fees, medical and exam costs as I think it gives a good comparison to actual flying costs. My instructor was keen to get me to fly outside the local training area so notable flights were down south to Turweston (1.7hr leg) and up and across to Campbeltown (2.5hr leg). These were very enjoyable trips and align with my flying goals of weekend trips away and visiting family and friends across the country.

Beyond those costs is where flying can get as expensive as you want. I personally started training in 2018 and have held a skydemon subscription with pooley plates ever since. This makes it look very expensive but it is 3 years of subscription.

The learning materials and charts also look expensive and this could be significantly cheaper. If you can borrow books and tools a simple payment of £20 to air quiz would be all thats needed but I personally had Pooleys flight guides 1-7, (bought again in ebook form), various AFE books and both companies revision guides. I went through 2 different knee boards and had to update charts more than once.

The headset is another cost that can up prices. I don't think you can go wrong with the David Clark 13-4 headset as it is in my opinion the best non ANR headset. The club had offers for headsets that only cost £135. I actually bought 2 Davids Clarks so my girlfriend could fly with us in the back during lessons but haven't included this in the price. Upon passing I have now treated myself to the more expensive ANR headset but didn't include this.

My biggest fear of flying is the wings falling off and midair collision, so halfway through the course I decided I'd get a Sky Echo 2 even though it has limitations (nicely given in the flyer youtube video). This is purely a luxury purchase that isn't needed for the course but after reading accident reports where it was stated some form of ADS-B in (like a sky echo) would have potentially stopped the collision I decided it was something I could afford.

These cost brought the licence up to £10,124.18.

However something not mentioned yet is the cost of travelling to the aerodrome and for me that was a 45 minute journey to the airfield which totalled 2,145 miles and 62 hours of my life (2.6 days). In fuel, wear and tear this cost me £1,501.50. Before this I'd typically only drive 6,000 miles a year.
#1856319
Seeing this thread update reminded my that I never did fill in my totals.

I passed my skills test in November 2020, having endured many breaks in training due to lockdowns. My estimate is that the breaks probably cost me 5 hours of repeat training/refreshers. My flight time was bang on 57 hours, broken down as follows:

Image

Total costs incurred, which was totally on a PA28-151 Warrior:

Image

My flight school gave 5% discount for lump sum credit card payments, so all up flight costs (flight time + all landings) including the discount was £17,188 or just over £300 per hour.

Equipment costs include Bose A20's, bags, books, and all required nav material, tablet/mount/GPS receiver and SkyDemon subscription.

This does sound on the expensive side, but this was at an expensive, south east international airport (£24 per landing fee/£15 touch and go), but being only 15 minutes from home saved time/money on travelling, so a cheaper per hour school would probably have worked out similar after that was added. I also chose the more expensive PA28 over something cheaper, as I want to enjoy my training and fly something similar to what I'd fly after PPL.

Some training milestones:
Image

I had 41 flying days over 458 calendar days, with 23 days booked but cancelled. This equates to 62 unique flight sessions, and 32 cancelled.
Rob P liked this
#1858383
I passed PPL (G) last October at a total cost of £16K of which £12K was lessons (which included membership and "at home" landing fees), £3K was auxiliary purchases and fees and £.9K was diesel getting to/from airfield. Included in this are my flying helmet & suit plus iPad and other kit I still use(£.7K), I could probably recover a couple of hundred pounds by selling on redundant books, etc. and could have saved the same by not impulse buying kit I'll never use.

64 hours Pu/t & 12.5 hours P1. The terrible winter of 2019/20 and 4 month Lockdown in the middle didn't help. I flew 62% of all booked lessons, almost entirely all cancellations were weather related. It took almost exactly two years, I didn't rush things and passed my GFT a couple of days after my 69th birthday.
UncleT, TopCat, T6Harvard liked this
#1905178
Hi All,

I found this thread helpful at the beginning & thought I'd share:

Aircraft/instructor/skills test £10,254.40
Theory Exams £450.00
Club Memberships £257.00
Land away landing fees £168.00
Easy Groundschool £109.89
£11,239.29

I've still to add my FRTOL to the above (can't find the payment to show the cost), the cost of the Pooleys books, the Pooleys Exam Papers (not much use for the e-exams in my opinion), 2 x charts, Sky Demon subscription with Pooleys plates, medical & headset. I'd comfortably add at least another £1500 to the above total.
#1905569
This is a fantastical post I wish I had found sooner. I'm sure I'm not the only one that appreciates the time you put in to it! As always, no number can be set or guaranteed. There's far too many variables to expect anything like that. But regardless, this is a great ballpark figure with an even greater breakdown!

Personally I'm thinking of starting a PPL course in the Cessna 152, but have a strong desire to fly the piper after attaining the license and a couple of "rundown" flights just to get me accustomed to the different plane. I've been told it's a good way to save money, rather than doing the entire course in the Piper. I've been given figures of between 9-12k as estimates, but like everything else regarding price: I take it with a grain of salt!
#1917201
Another datapoint for those budgeting for PPL: my training was in a C152 at Cambridge from late 2021 to mid 2022. Total hours before skills test 49:00, after skills test 51:35.

Included: aircraft hire, landing fees, instruction cost, theory exams, FRTOL practical, Pooley's books, basic equipment (logbook, kneeboard, chart, nav rulers / whizz wheel / pens, flight bag, etc, all bought new), EasyPPL theory courses, skills test, licence, Class 2 medical
Not included because I haven't bought any of these yet, but probably will soon: headset (I just borrow one from the school each time), SkyDemon
Also not included: petrol costs (probably a few hundred £ overall)

Total: £14063.76

I think you could save about £1000 if you did it in absolute minimum 45 hours, £200 if you somehow find a way to learn the theory for free, and another £150 if you beg / borrow / steal the nav equipment. There might be other clubs with cheaper aircraft (C152 solo hire was £168 per hour inc VAT), airfields with slightly cheaper landing / T&G fees than Cambridge (now £19 landing and £8.50 T&G inc VAT) but I would say I paid about what I was expecting to overall! Well worth it though :)
T6Harvard, Milty, codejunkie liked this