UK PPL Lessons- how much do you pay?

[Thumpango]

Just wondered if the cost of my PPL lessons is in line with others. I currently fly from a busy airport on the south coast. If I purchase 4 lessons in advance this works out at £143 per hour. I am currently doing circuit training so during my hour's lesson of 'touch and go' I can expect to have to Orbit for at least 5mins and possibly have to land and wait to avoid vortex from departing aircraft- with my meter counting down at £2.38 per minute!

Flying from a busy airport does get your RT up to speed from a fairly early stage and there is a nice long runway, but I am now wondering whether the mechanics of circuit training would be more efficiently undertaken at a quieter and less expensive field.

Any suggestions?

[Evo7]

Roughly how many circuits do you do in a one-hour lesson?

If you're having to orbit or park regularly then I'm guessing you're managing four or five, which isn't ideal. I found that my first circuit of the day was almost always dodgy, and it sometimes took three or four before I was well on top of things.

I'd typically do seven or eight in a lesson - and in about 10 hours of dual and solo circuits I orbited once, after catching up with a very slow Auster+Luscombe formation downwind - so it sounds like you're missing out on the part of the lesson that helped me the most. Sounds to me like a quieter environment may well help - mine isn't any cheaper, though...

[eveepee]

I had the same dilemma as you as I started my flying at Biggin Hill which was mighty expensive. I changed to Rochester which meant I had to change instructor, aeroplane (C152 instead of Grunman), and surface (Rochester is grass). However, I haven't regretted it. My instructor is great, I am now used to the Cessna and I am saving loads of money!- It now costs £120 per hour with no landing fees. I am also on circuits and the savings alone on landing fees is worth the change. I need all the practice I can get! No doubt the circuits are less busy but that suits me at present and I prefer the friendly atmosphere of a smaller airfield.
Good Luck on your choice.

[FlyingForFun]

Hi Thump,

First of all, £143 sounds like a lot of money, but it's probably roughly right for the south - especially the south-east. Does your club have any other, smaller aircraft that they'll rent for less?

As for whether you're getting the most out of an hour of flying, there are so many pros and cons of different airfields that it's difficult to give an answer. As you say, you're getting good RT practice where you are, and you won't get that without the odd delay or two. On the other hand, you're missing out on other things, such as being forced to rely on yourself to spot traffic in the circuit (it's always your responsibility, of course, but having the safety net of ATC taken away from you might be difficult when you first go to non-controlled fields.)

Personally, I did all my training from an un-controlled grass airfield. When I got my PPL, I'd landed at a total of 2 airfields with hard runways, and 1 airfield with ATC (although that was Bournemouth, so I was mixing it with a couple of the big guys...)

When I had 100 hours, I went to America, and logged a further 100 hours flying from a field with full ATC - ground frequency, and two tower frequencies. I made a point of flying Class B transitions whenever it was appropriate. And I flew into Tucson International several times - they have a complete set of busy ATC frequencies there, including ATIS, Delivery, Ground, and several Tower, Departure and Approach frequencies.

So I'd suggest that you stay where you are, as long as you're happy with the instruction you're getting - you'll get valuable experience there. And, when you get your license, you'll need to fly into different types of airfield in order to get experience there, too. Exactly the same way everyone else does.

Hope that makes sense! Just re-read it, and it was very waffly - sorry!

FFF
---------------

[Pilot16]

call me stupid but i havent begun my PPL,

just how many hours can you do with an instructor per day?

[camaro]

£143 per hour!:eek:


Here in sunny South Yorkshire (Netherthorpe) is only about £85 per hour dual, no landing fees, no waiting, lovely grass strip.:)

Mind you, when I did my PPL just over ten years ago it was about £50 per hour. :p


Camaro

[Lawyerboy]

£99 per hour dual from a small grass strip in Hertfordshire (High Cross, just north of Ware on the A10, school is PSF), an hour's drive from central London. As High Cross is unlicensed you have to do a touch & go at Stapleford, 10 mins to the southeast, but the flight down there is actually quite a pleasant way to start each lesson, and means you're doing a navex/join pretty much every flight.

Cups of tea and dodgy shaggy dog stories from Alan Adams completely free:D

[greatorex]

I have to say that £143 sounds expensive - even for the South East. My daughter is doing her PPL at Biggin and the fees are nothing like that and that's taking the Biggin landing charges at nearly £20 'a pop' into account!

Could you get a better rate by buying more hours at a time or even by paying cash?!?!?! :confused:

[Biker Pilot]

£143 certainly sounds a lot to me, but if that is not an issue and you are happy with your progress and instructor, then stick with it.

If the money does become an issue, then as has been pointed out, there are plenty of alternatives. I fly with The Pilot Centre**Link removed.** at Denham who charge £115 dual for C152 or £125 for C172/PA28 (if you block book in advance - an extra tenner an hour if you pay per lesson). The full list of costs is on the above website. They are a helpful friendly bunch.

From reading others' posts, the same is true of almost all the flying schools so it just becomes a question of personal taste and ease of access.

Personally, I copped out due to time, weather and money constraints and ended up finishing in the States. :rolleyes:

BP

[Carlito]

Jeez guys,
Come to Ireland. I fly for Euro110 per hour, that's with an instructor or solo, no landing fees, no annual membership fee at a busy international airport with two runways, one of which is long enough to take a "light" 747.
I think it's about 65p sterling to the euro!!
Carlito

[A and C]

How much !!!!!!!!!!????????? It,s a real pity that adverts on pprune are forbiden.

[Carlito]

Ooops,
Not advertising. Honest. This is the standard rate here. Anyway by the time someone from England comes over and pays for accomodation it doesn't make commercial sense.
Still, am I allowed advertise the country? Practically empty airspace (by UK standards), great scenery and most of it class G. Not to mention the black stuff...

Carlito

[Thumpango]

Thank you all for your helpful comments, I guess if you want to train at an international airport its going to be top wack for the lessons! Anyone any experience of Old Sarum, Goodwood, Sandown or Bournemouth as these are all relatively local to me.

Carlito,

my airport has just started a service to Ireland, it would not cost much more to catch a flight and have a lesson over there!

Evo7,

on a good day I manage 7 circuits, on a bad day it could be as low as 4.

Biker Pilot,

my latest instructor is recently qualified, very young, a little lacking in confidence but OK, hence his final reluctance to let me solo the other day. (see posting "almost first solo") I visited your website- maybe qualifying in the States would save a LOT of money.

Flyingfor fun,

I guess you are right and I will probably stay where I am.


Thank you for all the other replies, it is a lot quieter and cheaper in Yorkshire, Denham, Highcross and even Biggin! which is where I first caught the flying bug.

[tacpot]

Last year I was paying £105 per hour (at the weekends when it is more expensive and with no block booking discount) in the Midlands, at a quiet field with short runways. So my short field technique is good but I'm not used to flying on controlled airspace or operating in a busy radio environment!

There was never a requirement to orbit or wait for wake turbulence to clear off, but the runways were short enough to mean that touch-and-gos were out of the question.

So you are gaining something training where you are, but it does sound expensive. But if you went somewhere else, you might incur additional travel and/or accomodation costs.

Is flying during the week an option to reduce the cost per hour?

[Evo7]

Thump

I fly from Goodwood. It will certainly be quieter, especially midweek, and there's a (very friendly) flight information service, so not the strict ATC you're used too. Not much difference in price at either Goodwood Flying School (Pipers) or Vectair (Robins).

However, if I were you I'd probably stay where you are - I assume it's convenient, and there's not much point spending an hour or more in the car to save £20. It doesn't seem ideal for circuits, but you'll be done with them soon enough and I bet your RT is better than mine... :)

If you decide to stay put, it might still be worth having a couple of lessons 'elsewhere' at some point to experience flying in a different environment - that way you have some experience of Little Snoring's short grass runway and A/G service before you arrive there on your QXC. I'm thinking of taking a couple of lessons at Southampton before too long for just this reason. From your 'alternatives' I presume that's where you're learning? If so, I'd be interested in knowing what you think of the people you're learning with, if that's OK (e-mail probably best, otherwise BRL will probably delete me.... ;) )

Regards,

Evo.

[englishal]

If you're flying a C152 then you're being ripped off. Bournemouth charge £139 / hr dual in PA28, inc. landing fees, approach fees and everything, which is quite reasonable for the UK (£100 / hr solo). C152 is a lot less, but I couldn't tell you how much....and EGHH is only 30 miles from Southampton.

(can you blame people for going abroard to do their flight training?).....

Cheers
EA
:)

[Julian]

Watch the landing fees in the UK. I am off to France from Bournemouth next weekend and was told be back before 9.30pm or the landing fees goes up from standard rate (whatever that is but you get a landing card with tthe plane so dont have to pay anyway!) to several hundred pounds (which somehow I dont think will be covered by the landing card!!!).

I cant see Bournemouth being the only place to do this so watch out if you ever get into night flying.

[englishal]

bloody hell, thats a lot of dosh to land !

Its a far cry from other countries where 'after hours' even the most busy airports become 'non towered' airports which you can just land at...even turn the runway ligts on yourself via the VHF...

Cherio

EA;)

[foxmoth]

EVO,
if you want to experience Southampton environment, the best way is probably just to do it FROM Goodwood, after all it is not far by air and you will know both your aircraft and your instructor (and your instructor will know YOUR ability), rather than trying to get used to a new schools way of doing things. A good time to fit this in is the cross country phase of the sylabus, have a word with your instructor. Probably can be fitted in earlier if you want to.

[Evo7]

foxmoth

A dual landaway at Bournemouth is one of the standard nav trips that Goodwood put you through, so that's something I'll be doing in the next month or so. :eek: :)

I'm going to wait and see how the EGHH trip goes before doing anything else, but right now a full ATC environment is kind of frightening after the rather informal FIS at Goodwood. Things should be fine, but if not I work about ten minutes away from Eastleigh so that seems like a possible option...

[englishal]

You'll be fine! To be honest its better to jump in the deep end than to avoid it, at least then you'll be able to handle anything you encounter.

I learnt at Long Beach, 5 runways, 3 actives, Clearance, 2 ground freqs, 2 tower freqs, american controllers talkingatthespeedoflight, blah de blah. I'm glad I did, and although it was quite nerve wracking to start with, you soon get used to it. Besides, most of the traffic at EGHH are training flights, the odd turbo prop, Falcon or Ryanair flight, and as a lot of the ATCO's are trainees, you're all in the same boat together. You should have heard it the other day, people talking over each other, people not responding to the tower, the tower lady getting stressed, people taxying the wrong way, people not reading back clearances....I had to chuckle....then I started talking with the wrong comm box selected, to ground, which wasn't in fact in use that day, but transmitting on the tower freq....still Tower Lady was very understanding !

Cheers
EA:D

[knobbygb]

Sorry, but it would break my heart to pay that much knowing how much cheaper it can be elsewhere in the UK, let alone abroad.

I know things are more expensive down South but does that need to be the case? Does it REALLY cost that much more to run the school/maintain the aricraft? You are paying about 80% more than me. I bet someone is just making a bigger profit on the back of it being 'South of Watford'.

I pay similar to camaro and train justa few miles up the A1 from him. Pa28 is £96 and C150 is about £84 all in. If the circuit is quiet I can usually do 9 circuits in an hour - at this stage in training it's this intensity that seems to help. I do miss not having the ATC and variation in traffic though, but that can come later.

I know it's probably not an option for you to travel up here, for say, a weekend and do five or six hours at once, but factoring in costs, you'd save about £250 each trip! (Yes, we have a B&B nearby for £22 - and they'll run you to the airfiled when not busy).

Just a thought. I know what I'd do...

[MikeSamuel]

Currently pay £90 p/h all in, C152 at a reasonably busy "international" airport with not much commerical operations at weekends. Was £85 p/h but recently gone up. No additional landing fees when in the circuit or anything, just the same cost whatever we do. I think its perfectly reasonable, there no profit made as such, and its a nice place to fly away from!!! ;)

[TangoZulu]

I fly from Bournemouth and would agree with the comments earlier - £139 ph all in for a PA28 at BFC - C150/152 is less but I am not sure how much - it used to be about £25 cheaper than the PA28.

Also the rates quoted are per hour and pay as you fly - no having to put money down in advance and on the whole I have only rarely had to orbit for any length of time whilst in the circuit.

Check the BFC website for some up to date details.

Rgds

TZ

[Who has control?]

What is never pointed out is the differing methods used for calculating price.

One club I flew with used to factor the tacho hours, 0.9 was the standard, rising up to 1.1 & 1.2. The published rate was (I think), 0.9 x tacho. The incentive here was to fly with as few revs as possible.

Another charged a flat brakes off- brakes on, which is find when the hold for the active runway was next to the club, but a pain when you had to taxi for 10 minutes. However, they would knock off 5 mins or so if there was a long wait. The incentive here was to fly as fast as possible.

Does anyone else know of any other creative accounting practices?

[keendog]

Kemble, £105
Unlicensed but big runways, busy with varied (including jet) traffic, lots of civil and military fields nearby. T & Gs at Staverton