Is that really true? My impression is that the basics of actually flying are reasonably straightforward, but I know a lot of people who would be absolutely flummoxed by the practicalities of paper-and-whizzwheel navigation, and who simply wouldn't be able to pass the theoretical exams no matter how much tutoring they had.
Sure there has to be a certain baseline IQ. No idea where it lies though; I recall one fairly dim chap (used to be a builder, and a bad one at that) who got himself a CPL last time I saw him, so he did the 9 or 10 exams OK. The exams took him ~2 years though.
Re RF setups, I think the PPL as a product
is price sensitive, in that if you doubled the cost, and for that you delivered a very professionally produced training package, with nice new planes, etc, you would lose most of the business. But we will never know this for sure, because all the time there is somebody in your area willing to sit there from 9am to 6pm, unpaid, in a hut, waiting for a phone call for some pleasure flight booking, with a heap of a C150 sitting outside, he
will get most of the business. He won't get the Alan Sugars, however.
I regard myself as being rather well off on about £40,000 a year - the top 15% or so of earners.
That is a very good income. If you live in some cheap dig, and keep your trousers zipped up
so you don't pick up any major obligations, then you can do a great deal of GA flying on that income. Probably ~100hrs/year, if in a group.
I still worry that I'm spending money that I should really be investing.
Depends on your age, etc, but hey I charge for financial advice
