Hour Building (PPL)

[Pawel Fraczkowski]

Hi everyone, at the moment I'm in the middle of my PPL. I have 25h and would like to find out where is the best place for hours building (Which country, airport?)

Because from what I've worked out If I have about 60h after my PPL IR and NR. I will need further 90 hours.

At 100 pounds an hour plane hire with fuel that works out to be (9,000) So I'm wondering if it's possible to get that done cheaper.

Thanks :ok:

[CDP8]

Hi, check out these guys

Learn To Fly New Zealand (http://www.learntoflynz.com)

From PPL all the way through to your first job you should enjoy the journey. There'll be huge highs and deep lows. Hour building was the best time of my career to date and it's thanks to Pete at flight training Wanaka. It's not all about the cost of things, it's about the experience, and money cannot buy back the memories I have of landing on farm strips, beaches; flying over the mountains, lakes and glaciers of NZ! I was the envy of the ATPL classroom when all the others had just gone and burnt a hole in the skies of a featureless country just because it was cheap.

All the best

[Flying Mechanic]

Head to the USA. It's a great country to fly around , it's cheap to live and exist if want to build up hours. Americans have a good attitude to private pilots, and make it easy for you.

[Pawel Fraczkowski]

If I was to do my Hour Building in America, I would preffer to do it in New Jersey/New York. As my uncle lives there and I can stay there for as long as I want without spending any money on accommodation.

Does any one know where is the best place for hour building in that area. Last time I went there I remember those locations around: Atlantic City, Linden, Morris Town, New York, Newark. I stayed near Newark and landed there. So if anyone knows a good place for hour building within this area, let me know.

[taxistaxing]

I looked into the US, and decided to do my hour building in the UK in the end. Partly because I'm told it's good to get experience of flying around the area you eventually want to work in (presumably the UK in your case), and partly because the savings weren't as much as I expected when I looked in detail at flights, exchange rates etc. By going abroad you'd also be forcing yourself to do everything in a short space of time, with no time to learn/reflect on your flying.

The cheapest possible way of building hours in the UK might be to buy a share in a simple aircraft like a 152 and then fly at £50/£60 per hour before selling you share again when you're done. There is a slight risk with this approach that if something goes wrong with the aircraft you could be on the hook for a big bill, as a co-owner.

A lower risk but slightly more expensive option would be to join a non-equity group (which is what I ended up doing). The hourly rate will be higher but no money is paid down and you don't have any risk at all if anything goes wrong with the aircraft. You can also save by taking mates flying and splitting the costs (so long as you pay a fair share, obviously).

Either of the above is going to be substantially cheaper than hiring from the school you did your PPL at!

Good luck with it.