Flying lesson price question?

Question

recently i started up flying lessons, and so far i got up to four flights. I stopped because of bad weather. i havent flown since January 2008. i been getting some news letters saying prices have gone up by a couple of dollars. right now and last time i saw a hour flight with a instructor is about 180$. Why is it so expensive to fly these little planes, when the same cost can buy you a 6 hour flight to california. I live in Washington and take lessons at pavco airport. Are there any cheaper places to learn how to fly?

Answer 1

$180 per hour is a little high for a typical Cessna trainer. It's not outrageous though.

The cost goes to the following:

Insurance

Maintenance

Fuel

Instructor

Insurance is always much more expensive for flight training than it would be for a certified pilot to use it privately. The maintenance has to be done frequently and to very high standards. Parts are expensive too. You know how expensive it is to get your car worked on. Well, imagine that times ten for aircraft. Fuel prices have been going up too so that would probably add about $10 or so for each $1 increase in fuel price. Flight instructors always get paid squat, so that doesn't factor in so much.

Whatever little is left goes to profit, and believe it or not, the flight instruction business is not very profitable, even when times are good. My instructor used to tell me that he made more from his little salary than the school made from his flights. That's probably an exaggeration, but not much.

When you think about an airline flight, remember that they take 100-200 passengers or more, and some of those passengers payed more than you did.

You might consider shopping around for a better price. You can search for other schools in your area here:

http://www.flightschoollist.com/

http://flighttraining.aopa.org/learntofl...

http://www.bestaviation.net/

http://www.aviationschoolsonline.com/sch...

If you want to feel better about the price, check out the rates for helicopter training. Rates in my area are starting to exceed $300 per hour. Now that's pain.