So what does it cost to learn to fly anyway?

Disclaimer

How much does it cost to learn to fly? It turns out that this is a pretty complicated question to answer and no two people will tell you the same thing. In fact, I suppose you could say that most of this blog is going to be devoted to answering this question, so I won't attempt to make a complete answer in this post. The total cost of getting a pilot's license is dependent on the individual, the location, the year, the instructor, what sort of license you're getting, and many many other factors. In this post, I am just going to explain the basic things you will likely be paying for. I will throw in some numbers, but that's just to give you a ballpark estimate of the price. The actual price you will pay will be different depending on where you live, and of course theres no way of telling what the prices will be several years from now. For the sake of this post, we'll just be talking about the Private Pilots License (PPL). There are other licenses that we'll talk about in later posts, but I think this is probably the most standard license for new pilots to be shooting for. Also, the reader should note that I'm attempting to describe the price that the typical student will pay without using any of the tips and tricks that we'll be discussing later in this blog. I'm hoping that with a little help from my readers, we can come up with a plan to fly for much cheaper.

Private Pilots License Requirements

The official requirements for becoming a private pilot are found in parts 61 and 141 of the Federal Aviation Regulations. Part 141 has the requirements for special FAA certified schools, and 61 contains the requirements at other schools, but they turn out to be pretty similar.  The basic difference is that in part 141 schools, the student is required to follow a well defined curriculum whereas in a part 61 school, there is more flexibility in order to suit the pilots specific needs. In part 141 the minimum amount of time flying is 5 hours less, but its very rare for pilots at either type of school to get their license with the minimum number of hours anyway. In addition, part 141 schools require much more ground training. Reading through the FARs isn't that much fun, so I'll tell you the very basics of the part 61 requirement here (the part 141 requirements aren't really that much different).

• Obtain a medical certificate
• Prepare for written test
• Pass written test
• Complete 40 hours of flying, including:
• 20 hours of dual time (flying with an instructor)
• There are a whole bunch of skills you need to learn during this instruction.
• The FARs specify some requirements on how some of this flying is done such as requiring cross country trips of a certain length, and so much time flying at night
• 10 hours of solo time
•  Just like with the dual time, there are some specific things you need to do during this time
• Practical rest (more commonly referred to as the "check ride")

None of these steps are usually free, but some of them (such as preparing for the written test) aren't too bad. By far, the biggest cost in flight training is the time you spend in the air. Assuming you don't own an airplane, plan on paying a pretty hefty fee for those 40+ hours of aircraft rental and fuel.

So How Much Does it Cost?

Medical Certificate

For a PPL, you have to receive a medical certificate from an FAA approved Dr. Basically, they just make sure that you don't have any medical conditions that would make it dangerous for you to fly. You should note that this includes going over any prescriptions that you have to make sure that it is ok to operate a plane while using those drugs. I've never obtained a medical certificate, so I don't know the cost first hand, but according to this article it typically costs between $95 and $140.

Preparation for the Written Test

It is a common myth that you have to go to ground school in order to get a pilots license. It turns out that the only requirement is that you do something to prepare for the written test and that a CFI (certified flight instructor) signs an endorsement saying that you have prepared and are ready to take the test. Some cheaper alternatives to ground school include online programs, DVDs, and books. If you're one of the lucky few, your employer might actually pay for ground school, but I that's mostly for people in the aviation industry. We'll talk about affordable written test preparation in a later post, but in this post we aren't talking about using any tricks, just the standard cost which is around $250-$500. In addition you will probably need to read some books which cost somewhere around $200. (Since this isn't really a topic big enough to make a whole post about, I'll just give one tip right here: it turns out that all of the FAA books are available online for free, so you probably wont need to buy a single book).

Take/Pass Written Test

The FAA written test currently has a fee of $160 (as of April 2021). There's not a whole lot that can be done about this because the fee is actually mandated by the FAA. I know you can get a small discount through AOPA though. The best way to save money taking the written test is to make sure that you pass it the first time, as you will have to pay the full fee each time you take it.

Flight Hours (dual and solo)

This is by far the most expensive part of obtaining a pilots license. Assuming that you are renting an aircraft, you will have to pay an hourly fee for the rental, pay for fuel (which may or may not be included in the rental prices), possibly pay for renters insurance, and for dual time, pay for the instructor.

Of course there's a pretty wide range of prices for aircraft rentals, but I find that the cheapest ones are usually around $120-150/hr (including fuel and renters insurance). A typical two seat trainer burns around 5-8 gallons of AvGas (100 Low Lead) an hour and a gallon of AvGas costs around $4.00-$7.00/gallon. You can look up average AvGas prices in your area at 100LL.com. Instructor rates vary, but you can expect to pay somewhere between $55-$65/hr.

Its important to note that many of the cheapest trainers cannot carry very much weight, so depending on how much you and your instructor weigh, you may not be able to fly in some airplanes. In my case, I'm about 30 pounds too heavy to reasonably expect to train in a Cessna 152, so I will have to plan to rent the more expensive Cessna 172 in my area.

So that means your flight hours should cost something like ($135)*40 + $60*20 = $6,600 right? Well, unfortunately, no one actually gets their pilot's license in 40 hours of flight time. 20 hours of dual and 10 hours of solo plus 10 hours of either are minimum requirements, but usually in order to master the skills required for the check ride and required to be a safe pilot, a student pilot needs more like 55-70 hours of total time. So a more realistic number is probably more like $8,600-$12,000

Check Ride

The check ride consists of two parts, an oral exam, and a flying exam. Since half of it is flying, you'll have to pay for a plane and fuel. The duration of the exam varies depending on the examiner (and probably a little bit on the student too). A typical flight portion lasts between 45 minutes to an hour and a half, so you'll probably pay something like $200 for the air time. As a special gift from the FAA to you, your FAA examiner will perform the oral and flying exams completely free of charge... or at least that's the way it should be. Its true that the FAA is willing to provide an examiner for free, but in most cases you either don't have an FAA examiner in your area, or they are extremely over-booked so you will have to wait for a very long time in order to schedule an appointment. So, most pilots instead pay for a Designated Pilot Examiner (DPE) to administer their check ride. A DPE is a non-FAA employee who is designated by the FAA as an approved examiner. They often have to travel to administer the test, so they can be a little pricey. A typical prices is somewhere around $600-$800.

Total

So, if we don't use any money saving trips, we come up with a total of $9,000-$14,000, and that's with flying in relatively low end trainers. Its cheaper than a newish car, but that's still not exactly cheap. I'm going to use this number range as a standard for the typical naive student's private pilot training cost. Lets see how much we can lower that by following some tips and tricks.

Happy flying.

Revision Information

This article was originally published in October 2014, but was updated in April 2021 to correct some mistakes and update prices to more current numbers.

If you have comments specifically regarding this post, please leave them in the comments section below. If you have comments regarding any other topic related to cost effective flying or some general feedback about the blog overall, please send them tothestingypilot@gmail.com and I will try to address them in a future post.