Learn to Fly

Forget the Cost of Learning to Fly, Think Value

April 11, 2016 by Robert Mark

SkyArrow Aloft Forget the Cost of Learning to Fly, Think Value

You’ve obviously thought of learning to fly or you wouldn’t be here right now. Spend a little time reading Richard Bach’s classic Jonathan Livingston Seagull and I guarantee you’ll be putty in the hands of any flight instructor who offers you a demo flight. You may not even need an airplane.

OK, back to reality … where everyone remembers how damned expensive it is to learn to fly. Blah, blah, blah.

Really?

Cost Vs. Value

Forget what everyone else has told you about why no one learns to fly anymore and prepare your mind for a few fresh ideas.

When you stroll around a new-car showroom or troll the Internet for a set of wheels, is cost the only thing on your mind? I doubt it. If it were, how could Toyota, GM, Honda and the rest have sold all those electric cars? They’re way more expensive than my gas-driven Mini Cooper, the one I’ve been driving for 10 years now … with no payments for the last six. If you’re outside the 1%, you probably think about buying a car in terms of the number of monthly payments before that baby’s yours.

Consider school today. The cost of our daughter’s college is enough to melt the brains of people who don’t have kids. Luckily she’ll only be 22 when she graduates which means she’ll have many years ahead to add her two cents to the entertainment world she loves based on her education.

When we talk flying though, everyone zeroes in on the cost per hour and little else.

But what if we treated learning to fly like a college education or a new car and amortized the cost … spread it out over a few years. What happens next is simply magical. The price of learning to fly begins to look affordable as the raw dollar issue slips to the back of your focus much like minimizing a tab on a browser. You know it’s still there, but it’s just not staring you in the face every moment of the day.

152 jetwhine.com — AOPA’s Reimagined Cessna 152

Jim Knollenberg told me the other day that earning a private pilot certificate today, start to finish, probably runs between $10,000 to $12,000. He’s president of Pilot Finance Inc., an Illinois-based company that finances both the private pilot certificate and the instrument rating for the short of cash. [Read more…] about Forget the Cost of Learning to Fly, Think Value

Time is Flight Training’s Critical Cost

January 7, 2013 by Scott Spangler

In discussing a wide range of subjects starting with flight training, much has been said about the dilatory and disaffecting consequences of aviation’s financial requirements. But in order of importance, money must follow time, a finite resource that can never be renewed, only used efficiently.

If not effectively and efficiently guided by a well thought out curriculum designed for the student’s particular needs and acted upon by a teacher and student committed to its goals, learning to fly can squander vast amounts of both time and money if either member of this educational team is not prepared, on-time, and ready to work.

No matter how well designed and delivered a flight training program may be, preparation is key to mitigating the waste that can result when unplanned variables threaten a scheduled lesson. A proactive maintenance and inspection program reduces the chances of a mechanical cancellation, and another aircraft of short wait for a returning trainer can often salvage the already committed investment of time.

Dealing with Mother Nature isn’t so easy when she makes it clear that real airplane flying is not a safe educational pursuit. Canceling the lesson shouldn’t be seen as a waste of time when safety is at stake. The value gained or lost should be measured by how the teacher and school reinvest the time.

New GI Bill has Wings…Maybe

January 22, 2011 by Scott Spangler

Earlier this month President Barack Obama signed the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 2010 into law. For the first time since Vietnam, it will cover flight training under non-degree educational programs.

Depending on the veteran’s eligibility, the new law authorizes up to $10,000 a year for flight training. But just because such payments are authorized doesn’t mean the allocated funds exist. Congress has to pass an appropriate bill for that, and it’s still working on the 2011 budget, which was due last October.

If Congress appropriates the money, it will be interesting to see how many vets pursue flight training. After World War II, learning to fly under the GI Bill led to the GA boom, which saw the number of airplanes delivered every year climb into the tens of thousands. But that boom peaked in the 1970s, when the Greatest Generation turned 50 and started looking at retirement.

Far fewer served during Vietnam, and given the unpopularity of that conflict, our GI Bill benefits were nowhere near those who served during World War II, or today. Still, regardless of the era, vets have to make a choice between recreation and a career.

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