Stapleford Flight Centre costs

[rriisshhii]

After seemingly perpetual vacillation, which appears to be synonymous amongst the wannabes, brought about by approximately 2 year's worth of research and visits and PRuNe-ing and reading brochures and attending open days and seminars etc.etc. has led me to make my final decision; to undertake my training at Stapleford, whilst doing the London Met foundation degree in aviation operations. I am already pre-empting the barrage of comments I will get in regards to doing this degree, but as said it was after alot of decision making. My aim is to save as much of the student loan as possible, to contribute towards the cost of flying, whilst having some fun in studying something I know I will enjoy, adding a slight delay to the time I finish my training with ...hopes... for better job prospects when I've finished.

With the occasional night out.

My reason for posting is for a bit more help! If possible, could someone who has trained at SFC possibly PM me? I have made a spreadsheet estimating the amount of money I will have to spend to complete my training, complete with contingencies and extras, and would like some help figuring out whether it is a fair plan, and if others who have trained there can associate with the prices I have estimated.

I'll put up a quick price estimate:

PPL 7500
PPL Groundschool 350
ATPL 2450
Hour Build 8000
CPL 5000
ME 2530
IR 12500
MCC 2650

Thank you in advance.

rriisshhii

[macflea]

hi

what ever price you have calculated add 50% to it and thats what it will roughly cost , thats my experiance , i was once like you trying to budget. i did cpl at sfc at southend touch and goes about 20 pounds for the very first one and 15 pounds for all subsequent ones. one day did 9 t+g cost me about 160 in total , and i had to go to southend a few times.there are a lot of unforseen costs

cheers

[Nashers]

what about cost of equipment to start with like headset, rulers, CRP5, knee board, charts, text books etc... (aprox 500-700)

travel cost or living expences at the airfield

fuel surcharge

approaches and landing fees at other airports

exam fees and aircraft hire for the exams (probably abt 2000 for the IR and another 1000 for the CPL as long as they are both first time passes)

and what about if you are just not good enough to finish everything on minimum hours? everyone goes over somewhere or the other. i did my CPL in minimums however went a few over my IR. another friend of mine went well over hours in his CPL but did his IR in minimums.


edit: oh and unless you just intend to burn holes in the sky, some extra money for landing fees during your hour building would be a good idea.

[rriisshhii]

Yeah I have accounted for all those extras, the costs I put up there are purely just the costs of flying. Here is the full list in £:

FLYING COSTS

PPL 7500
PPL Groundschool 350
Hour Build 8900
ATPL 2450
CPL 6000
ME 2530
IR 12500
MCC 2650


EXTRA COSTS

LANDING FEES
PPL 30
Hour Build 100
CPL 100
IR 450
Accomodation 6000
Equipment.etc. 1000


EXAM FEES

Radiotelephony 50
PPL 140
ME 100
IR 100
CPL 100

CAA FEES

IR TEST 712
CPL TEST 712

Exam fees 868


LICENCE ISSUE

PPL 164
ME 108
IR 108
CPL 216

Medical 350


Total = £54,288

I do get that is more expensive than what SFC have said, but I've added a few more hours to the flying, as few people have told me to do this. For instance it's unlikley that I'lll get my PPL in minimum hours.

[Curtis E Carr]

Cost of PPL issue now £176

Cost of CPL issue now £231

Cost of CAA Skill test now £762

ME class rating and IR now £116 (each)

Cost of initial Class 1 Medical now £330

Cost of ATPL ground exams now £66 per paper

See this (http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/241pls.pdf)

[clanger32]

Rriisshhii,
congratulations, that seems like a well thought out plan to me, so best of luck with it, hope it works out for you.

Only thing I would add to your list is that I would add a lump of wedge on (say at least £5k) to budget for things you just can't forsee (for example, every year I've been looking at aviation, the CAA fees have gone up, so if you're plan crosses the year divisions, you could suddenly end up with higher costs!)
Also - for ATPL ground school, and it's not much, but figure in 2 x bristol ground school database registrations at £100 total (unless it's changed). :ok:

good luck with it, enjoy Uni - but if you want to do the two together, you'll require a LOT of self discipline

[Skyway8]

Rriisshhii,

This options sounds preferable to also, me as I live in Essex and would save on the accomodation expense.

How long do you project it would take to complete at that level?

[Nashers]

unless you only intend to land about 10 times in +/- 100 hours of hours building, i suggest you add some more money for landing fees. average is 10 pounds at most places. some places more.

CAA ATPL exam fees are 66 pounds per paper wich works out at 924.00 as long as you pass all of them first time.

CAA exam fees for the CPL is 762.00 and if im not mistaken, around the 400 mark for a partial. thats the same for the IR but you have to add aircraft hire and landing fees to that. when i did my IR skills test, it worked out to over a 2k day out and that was a first time pass. if you had to go back, you got to think of the cost of going there again and the extra sim/ flying before resitting as well.

the 170A for both, your CPL and IR will cost you dual hire plus 100pounds to the instructor.

what i did was work on 60k which included my travel, accomodation and food. if you spend less, its a bonus.

[Put1992]

EXTRA COSTS

LANDING FEES
PPL 30
Hour Build 100
CPL 100
IR 450
Accomodation 6000
Equipment.etc. 1000

Don't quite get what you mean by this. Landing fees are far from £30 for a PPL, let alone the others, so i assume you don't mean that, but what is the extra £30 for a PPL etc for?

[rriisshhii]

@ macflea

That's surprising to hear, I've heard that SFC has very few, if any hidden costs. But thanks for the heads up, I will add more of a contingency to the landing fees, and when I go to visit SFC again will ask further questions about them. It's not something I pre-empted as a major cost to add to my budget.



@ Curtis E Carr

Damn the CAA! I think that SFC need to update their brochure, I merely took the licence issue costs from their website, thank you for the link.



@ clanger32

The extra 'wedge' of money I'm hoping will come from my 'saved' student loans. And I do have discipline but the flying isn't done simultaneously with the degree; 1st Year - Aviation operations + PPL Theory. 1st Year summer - PPL Flying, 2nd Year - ATPL Theory, 2nd Year summer - Hour Build, CPL, MEIR. As it's a foundation degree, it's only 2 years so there is the option of topping up to a BSc. And thanks, I sincerely hope it works too! It's the first time in 2 years I've felt a pang of excitement about flying, throughout the rest of the time it's been mostly cynicism.



@Skyway8

Well the projected timescale is:

2009-2010 - 1st year at London Met
2010 Summer - PPL
2011 - 2012 - 2nd year at London Met
2012 Summer - 2013 Summer/Autumn - Hour Build, CPL, MEIR

But seeing as it's in the UK, this timescale is all weather dependent.



@Nashers
Yeah it seems that my "extras" list is increasing in price. But I wasn't planning on spending anywhere near £60k so I think I may have to do a few more calculations. Did you train at SFC, and how much have you/did you end up spending, if you don't mind me asking?



@Put1992

The extra £30 for the PPL etc are the landing fees. The landing fees at SFC are free, providing you're a member of the club. Those prices are all the landing fees I accounted for which were AWAY from the club itself, but again they were taken straight from SFC's brochure. That's why I asked others if they could help me in my prices; just in case I was wrong! So far my calculations have showed me that I need to account more for landing fees, for licence issues and exams. Woop


rriisshhii

[Kiev23]

Can i ask why are you trying to calculate things so specifically ?

[rriisshhii]

It may appear a bit too specific, but the prices I've calculated are taken straight from the SFC brochure, and then worked according to what I feel will be a good estimate .ie. extra hours etc. But as for the reasoning, I don't have a specific answer. It may be just how I am when planning things? I have been known by my friends to be fairly meticulous and anal when it comes to planning things. It also gives me a visual aid to look at; I can see how much I will actually spend, and compare them to my estimations to see if I'm on target to my budget if that makes sense? I don't have money to throw at the training, so the more I plan the more likely I am to stick to a budget.




In theory.

[Put1992]

@Put1992

The extra £30 for the PPL etc are the landing fees. The landing fees at SFC are free, providing you're a member of the club. Those prices are all the landing fees I accounted for which were AWAY from the club itself, but again they were taken straight from SFC's brochure. That's why I asked others if they could help me in my prices; just in case I was wrong! So far my calculations have showed me that I need to account more for landing fees, for licence issues and exams. WoopAhh, fair enough!

I reckon it would be a bit more though! My landing fees were around £85 for away landings alone, and I passed in minimum hours.

[Leezyjet]

i did my CPL in minimums however went a few over my IR. another friend of mine went well over hours in his CPL but did his IR in minimums

That wasn't his fault he went over on the CPL though :ok:

The landing fees at SFC are free, providing you're a member of the club. Those prices are all the landing fees I accounted for which were AWAY from the club itself, but again they were taken straight from SFC's brochure. That's why I asked others if they could help me in my prices; just in case I was wrong! So far my calculations have showed me that I need to account more for landing fees, for licence issues and exams. Woop

Hour building is one of the best parts of training, getting out and about and seeing bits of the country you probably wouldn't normally visit. You can just go fly around and land back at Stapleford, but that takes away half the fun of it and alot of learning too - you will learn alot going to new places, with different procedures and landing at different strips of various shapes and sizes. It's also nice to have a varied collection in the log book so potential employers can see that you are comfortable with x-country flying. Technically you could do all your hour building in the circuit, but then you wouldn't learn anything doing that either.

A good tip is to buy Pilot magazine and Go Flying magazine, and use the free landing vouchers. It will cost you about £8/month for both (but you can look at them first to see where the vouchers are for before you buy) and even if you only use 1 voucher, that will have saved you a £10-15 landing fee and covered the cost of buying the magazines.

Another thing that caught me out was refuelling away from base. Fuel is included in the cost of the a/c hire but when you refuel away from base, you have to stump up the cost out of your own pocket, and then SFC deduct that cost from the cost of your a/c hire. It can be quite a substantial amount too. Towards the end of my hour building, I just used to plan trips so I could get out and back to EGSG so I could refuel there without having to pay out of my own pocket.

:)