How Much $$$?

[BFMF]

What an expensive hobby Aviation is...

But it's so worth it

[Hai Perso Coyone?]

But it's so worth it

Definately

[Drake_TigerClaw]

What an expensive hobby Aviation is...

Hobby? No no no.... Career!  ;D

[EirePlane]

here in the UK a complete pilot's license (including everything you need to work for an airline) is

[Brett_Henderson]

One thing to remember too is; once you're a pilot, you're commited to spending several hundred dollars per month for the rest of your life. If you don't go up at least twice per month; a couple hours each time; you won't stay sharp (or enjoy the flying).

[beaky]

One thing to remember too is; once you're a pilot, you're commited to spending several hundred dollars per month for the rest of your life. If you don't go up at least twice per month; a couple hours each time; you won't stay sharp (or enjoy the flying).

Not to mention the legal requirements, esp. for advanced ratings.
But it's do-able if you really want it bad..

[RitterKreuz]

Brett... are you a CFI? just curious

there is a fair percentage of students who bust their tails to get that certificate and then when it is all said and done with they hang up the headset to gather dust!

your thoughts on this...

personally it drives me insane, if im going to spend hours weeks, months and thousands of dollars doing something i would strive to be the best i could be at it. i compare it to spending gobs of money on golf lessons, getting good enough to shoot in the 70s and then saying "well thats good enough" and basically never playing again. its like WTF  ???

[Brett_Henderson]

Brett... are you a CFI? just curious

there is a fair percentage of students who bust their tails to get that certificate and then when it is all said and done with they hang up the headset to gather dust!

your thoughts on this...

personally it drives me insane, if im going to spend hours weeks, months and thousands of dollars doing something i would strive to be the best i could be at it. i compare it to spending gobs of money on golf lessons, getting good enough to shoot in the 70s and then saying "well thats good enough" and basically never playing again. its like WTF  

Yes, I did the CFI check-ride (check-DAY) back on March 1st. I haven't taken on a student yet for a couple reasons. I'm not in one place long enough to be there consistently for someone going through that magical time; and I'm not really ready, in my opinion. My plan is to have a worthwhile distraction when I retire and to become the instructor I never had... available at any time and not just passing through on my way to an airline job.

I'm guilty of the dusty headset too. I got my PPL back in 1978-79 (I was 19). My father was good friends with an FBO owner.  After I got married, working and future building was priority one. I didn't fly much at all for years. A couple years ago, I stopped at KOSU to watch a few planes land.. saw the, "Learn to fly here" sign at a neat, little club; talked to a few members; took a quick flight in a Piper Cruiser and haven't stopped flying since. I finished my instrument rating.. got complex and hi-performance endorsements.. and then commercial and CFI ratings (6 hours into my multi-engine too). I figure by the time I'm a CFII/ME I'll be ready for students  ::)  .. no hurry..

Anyway.. I suppose there are as many reasons for people to stop flying, as there are for them to start. Time, money, fear (bad experience).. you name it. One that almost got me for a second time was weather. I'd experience palpable anxiety bordering on aggravation, even instrument-rated, when weather messed with a big flight plan. I'd imagine the percentage of people who do it, "just to do it" who end up flying often, for the rest of their lives is small. I hope I stay in that small group.

[RitterKreuz]

well said... good luck with your instructing when you get to it.

I was a CFI for four and a half years. Even though i was one of those CFIs on my way to an airline job i considered myself to be a dedicated professional instructor purposely witholding my resume until times would get slow. I went through 5 instructors for my private (lost nearly all of them because they took other jobs etc.) so i decided right away that i would not be one of "those" instructors. My schedule was pretty much set 6 days a week though i would often come in to catch up a straggling student or two on my 1 day off. Somtimes finishing a cross country so late that i would just sleep in the FBO.

It was a helluva lot of fun, and i will return to those roots sooner or later in life. I learned more my first year as a CFI than i did through any training program.

Looking back on all of those hours as a CFI it was easy to complain about the hot bumpy summers and the freezing cold winters but in hind sight...

There is nothing much like that last lesson of a hot summer day when the air is cooling off, the bumps subside, and while admiring the sunset casting long shadows along the ground as you make one more trip around the pattern you barely notice the wind burn on your right arm which spent 8 hours of the day proped on an open cessna window.

it was easy to complain about the bitter cold winters then, but now I often stop to think about those days that I would walk a student through his pre-flight on those cold crystal clear mornings when the only "cloud" in the sky is the steam billowing from my coffee.

but, i will be pulling the cabin heat knob or pulling out the "orange juice cans" again soon enough.

[Brett_Henderson]

Thanks.. That brought back some fond memories (some not all that old)...

I like meeting instructors. I was in Fargo, ND this weekend... had planned on taking a 172 into Minnesota. It was kinda awkward, having to get "checked out" to rent a plane, but those are the rules. The CFI was all of 21 years old and exploding with enthusiasm, even at the prospect of a short rental check-ride. He started instructing the minute we started moving. He was telling me how to taxi (I gotta admit I ride the brakes a bit.. you have to at KOSU when there are 3 planes in front of you and 3 behind you every time you head for a runway)... talked me through the climb.. And then, the scattered layer at 800 turned out to be broken (couldn't really tell against the 7,000 hard ceiling)
.. so we turned back for the pattern. On downwind, he was telling me when to apply carb-heat and I politely said, "Son, you aren't going to be able to re-teach me to fly in an hour, we're just trying to determine if I'm qualified to rent from your FBO".. then I cut through the base-leg and angled for the numbers. He started mumbling what sounded like a well-rehearsed routine about lining up stable or we're going around. By then, I had mis-judged the 9knot cross-wind and ended up just the OTHER side of runway center on a very short final. Before he could say anything, I said, "We're fine" and landed perfectly. He didn't talk again until we were clear of the runway and only said, "Nice recovery.. when the clouds clear, you're good to go". They never did clear and the whole point of the trip would have been for the scenery, so I went ahead and rode to the lake with a friend.

I kept thinking about him and what it must be like to be an instructor with so few hours, checking out a pilot with probably three times as many. We're going to keep in touch.

Later, at the lake, there ended up being a Citation pilot and parachute instructor to talk flying with.. It was a great weekend..  

[RitterKreuz]

sounds like fun. I remember my first lesson as an instructor like it was yesterday.

wet behind the ears with 360 hours in my log book I passed my check ride at 3:00 pm on the 22nd of March, was hired by a small local flight school since their CFI just took another job at 4:00pm... had my first lesson at 8:00 am the next morning on my 23rd birthday! It was a $49 be a pilot intro ride and i was probably more nervous than the student!

off we went into the warm spring air and 2800 hours later... the rest as they say is history

[beefhole]

The fond memories you guys are talking about are probably one of the reasons my CFI is seriously considering leaving Continental Express and instructing part-time again. (speaking of the original topic, expenses, the other reason being he doesn't like to work extremely hard and not get paid nearly enough for it)

[Brett_Henderson]

Making a living flying is a tricky thing for sure. Around here, CFIs get $30-40/hour, but rarely log more than 20, paid flying hours per week. I haven't checked recently, but I've heard that even once you're taken on by an airline, you'll make less than a fast-food manager. It's funny, because the kind of instructing I plan to do would cost somebody starting from scratch about $50,000 to prepare for !  And they'll be lucky to earn $20,000 per year.

When I was first learning to fly, an airline job was out of the question. You had to have near 20/20 vision, a college degree and military flying experience.

My cousin flies law-enforcement helicopters and wants to fly charter/tourism as soon as he can leave his present job, pension-vested. We've talked about buying a plane and basing ourselves around the resort islands in northern Michigan.. Ahhh to dream  :D

[Fozzer]

What an expensive hobby Aviation is...

It always amazes me that anyone can realistically afford to fly aeroplanes... ...!

..simple as that... ...!

Paul... ...!

[RitterKreuz]

to make it pay, you have to use smart scheduling.

hold a regularly scheduled ground school that meets 2 or 3 days a week and try to get as many as your students into it as possible instead of trying to get one student at a time in for ground school. if you are doing it right your ground school material should take about an hour or two depending on the lesson being covered. if every student is paying 15 - 20 bucks an hour for the same hour you basically just got paid for 4 or 5 hours for the same hour. That really helps out in some of the winter months when flying is not happening much due to weather.

another thing i would do is charge a flat rate for flight reviews. The FAA minimum for one of those things is one hour on the ground and one in the air, most people thought $75 was fair for a full review regardless of how long it takes.

i never did this... but you could offer a GPS class to current pilots who dont really know how to use their GPS. lots of little things you can do.

on a side note - i once had a wealthy old man walk into the FBO one day and ask me how much it would cost for a ride to houston. I had a lesson booked already, a cross country, and told him that the plane was unavailable, he says "will $500 make it available?" immediately i said "yes sir", it was only like an hour and 15 minutes to houston so my student got a free cross country on that old man's dollar and my take home was over 400 bucks!!! woo hoo