I would imagine quite a bit....over here in the UK, it's about (quote my father) £150 an hour.

Here in America, it depends on what you fly, how long it takes, and what gas prices are at the time.  When I did it three years ago, it cost me probably around $5,000 for ~42 hours in a Cessna 172.  So you could expect anywhere between $5,000 and $7,500 dollars, give or take a couple dollars.

EDIT:  That's for just a private pilot's license, if that's too much, you could go for a sport pilot's license, which costs a bit less, but you can't fly at night, or into controlled airspace, but I don't know all the details, so you might want to look into it.

over here in the uk it can cost between £4500.00 and £8500.00 to gain your ppl but if you want a rating i.e night flying then i think its around £500 for a night rating..... but don't quote me on that lol.

"Your Private Pilots Licence Flying Course

During the flying course you will need to undertake ground school lessons with your instructor to assist and prepare you for the flying exercises. You are required to sit and pass six written multiple choice ground exams and obtain an RT licence before you take the flying skill test. On completion of the training, you need to pass the flying skill test with our in-house CAA flying examiner. The Civil Aviation Authority will then grant you a Private Pilots Licence.

Privileges Of The Private Pilots Licence

Now you have a Private Pilots Licence (PPL) you can exercise the privileges of the licence and fly the aircraft solo or with family and friends.

Whether it's a local flight or landing at another airfield, you just book the aircraft at your convenience.

You can add ratings to the PPL as listed below or use the PPL as a stepping stone for a career change along the route to obtain a Commercial Pilots Licence.
validity Of The Private Pilots Licence

The Single Engine Pilots Licence is valid for 5 years provided that a minimum of 12 hours is flown in the second year of the 24 month rating expiry date. ( Other conditions apply )

Additional Ratings

It is possible to add further ratings to the basic Private Pilots Licence in order to expand the privileges afforded to it.

These other ratings include :

1 .THE NIGHT RATING :- This involves a course of approximately five hours instruction and allows the holder to fly as pilot in command of an aircraft at night.
2 . THE I.M.C RATING :- ( Instrument Meteorological Rating )- This is a course of a minimum of 15 hours instruction in the aircraft and 10 hours ground school followed by a flight test of approximately 2 hours and a ground exam. The aim of the course is to enable flight of an aircraft with reference to instruments only. "

hope this helps...

nemo......

if you mean all the way to airline pilot. Probably 50 grand plus.

Quote:


That must be minus the aircraft rental... there's no way that could be for everything. But... what's the name of the school? I want to do my IR; maybe that's only $1000 there...

The two best schools in my region of the US cost from $45000 to $64000 for nothing to CFII/MEII

Quote:


I don't know a whole lot about the requirements to getting an instrument rating here in the US, but you have to go through a groundschool, and I think it's a minimum of 40 hours of flight time.

Quote:


But it's so worth it

Quote:



Hobby? No no no.... Career! 

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).

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  ???

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.

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

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 

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

My plan is to get my CFI and instruct to get enough total time for a real job and then get a fun job and instruct on the side if needed. I'm thinking business, charter, bush, that kind of thing.

Aww... why not....... well there was that one time... But I recovered and that guy is ale to walk again now. 8)

Quote:

Ritter covered it pretty well, but to understand what I meant I'd suggest you take a closer look at the exact quote I used, then read Ritter's again

its alright drake... i know you dont mean anything by it and yes unfortunately the instructing profession is generally a stepping stone, just wish fewer CFIs saw it that way. good luck with your training and hang in there, the airline jobs are out there to be had and just like anything else they have their pros and cons.

Quote:


No one... Lottery win would be fine...

yeah, im thinking of spending 4-8 years in RAF, then  retire, join BAW  or virgin airlines..

im a student pilot now, and at least for where i am, the cost depends a lot on what plane you rent, i fly mostly the 172, and its usually around $80 an hour, the 152 is around $65 an hour, so it can all depend, also if you fly frequently you retain the information more than if you fly once in a while.

Quote:

It's good to know there's still a few professional instructors around. I was beginning to think they were all doing it as a part-time job until something better comes along. My hero & mentor started instructing before WWI & taught fighter pilots in both world wars. He retired in 1967 aged 75 when he was forced to give up instructing, much to his disgust. I was privileged to know & be taught by such a man.