IN the UK in 1990 0-BCPL which was 250 hours was about sixteen thousand pounds.
I did all the training in Jersey and England and the command time in Florida.

1993 I was paying $100 / hr on a c152 at Camden.

What’s the rate today?

Medicals and publication were a lot cheaper

Publications could be $0 if these people allowed taking them in electronic format.

In 1966/67 at Royal Vic a PA 28 was $12 dual, $10 solo but at that rate you never got the same instructor twice and no briefings at all. Of course the Chipmunk was a couple of dollars cheaper and the smell of vomit and fuel was at no extra cost.

Absolutely nothing wrong with the smell of fuel, but can't say it was a feature in the Chippie when bashing about with Clem Atkins, or when solo, nor vomit. Maybe you or your passenger just had a bad case of halitosis. :p

Geez I must have been getting shafted.

Started in ‘89 and was paying $115/hr dual in a C172.

On the plus side every instructor I flew with was 30+ (most were probably 40+) and had hundreds (more likely thousands) of hours experience.

Yeah, Clem Atkins was probably the only instructor that I didn't fly with at RVAC and maybe Bill Campbell Hicks. I did work for Clem a few years later at Airchart, nice guy, he organised another job for me when they closed down.

I think thats the best telling comparison right there.

You make a very good point, but folk do have to start somewhere. Did an instrument trip in a 172 with one instructor, Peter Raven, all of 21 years old at the time, only trip I ever did with him. One day a pax forwarded an exercise book to the cockpit with a request to fill out the details, was a quasi log book, flipping through it came to Peters name, command in a QF 744, a lot grander machine and position than the one I was punting.

Hey Roj, I can relate. Early 1990 I gained the CPL and ME IR. Pilot's dispute just coming to an end so a heap of 500-1,000hr CPLs ahead of me. Over the next 15 years built a few hours then parked the licence for 15 years. Late 2019 dusted off the old Part 5 licence and upgraded to Part 61 - some training then BFR and commenced IFR recency training with the aim to resume an aviation career, albeit belatedly. Then COVID hit so parked the refresher training :(

Back in 1990 the CPL, ME IR cost me around $30,000 and included ATPL subjects. Instructor rating in 1991 was around $7,000. All 50 hours was with rated instructors - we didn't do any mutual with other instructor students which I believe was allowed back then.

My memory is slipping but recall an IR in the 80's driving a Twin Can was under $3K, can't recall the Commercial side of it but working 3 jobs I had zero debt at the end of it all.
i was part ownership of a C150 in the late 70's where our group worked on $10 HR inc gas..........what happened to those figures? -)

VFR CPL in mid 1980s
 

I did my 200 hour VFR CPL, in the mid 1980s. I remember the cost of a Tomahawk at the start of my training was $33/hr. All up that was around $20k. There wasn't much you could do with that, so needed around another $5K for an instructor rating, and another $5k for an multi-instrument rating. That could get you a casual charter job out bush or casual instructing job in a major city paying around $20k/year, if you were lucky.

Early/Mid 90s 152 hire rate was about $65/$75 solo with 172 and PA28 rates about $10-$20 an hour dearer, an extra $30 or so per hour for dual rates. I think that was with club discounts, still have some rate sheets somewhere. I remember private licences were quoted about $5k and commercial around $20k with CIR and IR courses an additional $5-$8k dependent on operator. By 2000 those figures were starting to double.

Also no landing fees back in the 80s/early 90s. This certainly adds to the cost of training these days.

It cost the same back then as it does now......All of it

I did my CPL in NZ in 1991 and it cost me $90/hour solo in a C152, instructor was $40 per hour on top. No landing fees or airways charges. CPL IR and Insteuctors rating cost me just under $35k. To put it in perspective though, the fulltime job I had that paid for this in 2.5 years had a salary of $23.5k per year :-).