Is PPL worth it - ongoing costs?
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: glendale
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NO, it isn't. Just forget about it.
After you get your ppl, you will get worse and worse as a pilot unless you actively fly three or four times a month.
Your friends will fly with your for awhile, but they will get bored.
And you really can't aford it.
so , maybe take a lesson or two and chuck it.
you can always rent an aviation movie.
After you get your ppl, you will get worse and worse as a pilot unless you actively fly three or four times a month.
Your friends will fly with your for awhile, but they will get bored.
And you really can't aford it.
so , maybe take a lesson or two and chuck it.
you can always rent an aviation movie.
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: UK
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An instructor from an airfield not too far from you posted the following on Facebook just this week.
I was offered a share in an aircraft before I had finished my PPL. It cost £1000 for the share (minimum equity), £65 per month and currently £40ish p/h to fly. Which is next to nothing for the freedom of being airborne and the chance to continue to hone your skills, explore new challenges and meet some wonderful people.
Has anybody thought about intensive PPL training over the summer? Weather permitting it should be possible to do the whole course in 5-6 weeks. I've just worked out total course costs. Taking into account 45 hours of flight training, 20 hours of ground school, all books & charts, 9 written exams, the radiotelephony practical test, final flight test, buying a half decent headset, landing fees at other airports, medical, and licence application I come to a figure of £7500
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Oxford, UK
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EMA747, 30 years old and no commitments! no wife, no kids, no family, right?
no mortgage, no car,,,,,woops, you do need a car, you can always sleep in it! (I have been sleeping in my Hotel Mondeo now at gliding clubs for years....they laugh at me, but I withdraw from the noisy social scene to a private quiet corner, and you can't do that with a caravan with any agility).
So a PPL, what is it good for? I am eternally thankful that at the age of 50, my husband of 27 years ran off with his secretary, and I decided to do something mad, went for a trial lesson in a glider at High Wycombe.
Never looked back. Now, in the fulness of time, have 1400 hours in power, and 1800 in gliders. PPL, IR, Seaplane rating. Gliding triple Diamond. Flown in competitions, in Wales, Scotland, the Alps, the Soviet Union (!) toured France and Spain in my supercub, which I could afford only because it was used to pull up gliders. And that tremendous total of hours was mostly from tugging and from teaching. Still love it.
But the sensation of purest delight was that FIRST SOLO. In a K13 glider, over the M40, looking down at those wankers driving their BMW hunky machines and feeling completely absolutely magically above them all in every way! So right.
Money can't buy it, you have to work at it.
no mortgage, no car,,,,,woops, you do need a car, you can always sleep in it! (I have been sleeping in my Hotel Mondeo now at gliding clubs for years....they laugh at me, but I withdraw from the noisy social scene to a private quiet corner, and you can't do that with a caravan with any agility).
So a PPL, what is it good for? I am eternally thankful that at the age of 50, my husband of 27 years ran off with his secretary, and I decided to do something mad, went for a trial lesson in a glider at High Wycombe.
Never looked back. Now, in the fulness of time, have 1400 hours in power, and 1800 in gliders. PPL, IR, Seaplane rating. Gliding triple Diamond. Flown in competitions, in Wales, Scotland, the Alps, the Soviet Union (!) toured France and Spain in my supercub, which I could afford only because it was used to pull up gliders. And that tremendous total of hours was mostly from tugging and from teaching. Still love it.
But the sensation of purest delight was that FIRST SOLO. In a K13 glider, over the M40, looking down at those wankers driving their BMW hunky machines and feeling completely absolutely magically above them all in every way! So right.
Money can't buy it, you have to work at it.
Join Date: May 2014
Location: Uk
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Wait awhile
I see you're completing a scuba qualification. Just because you have a cert card doesn't make you a diver, sounds like a cliche but then the learning begins.
i've been diving 15 years, every time I dive I learn something. So use the skills you've just learned, go enjoy and make the most of them.
A few years down the line if you still fancy flying and can afford to commit to it after the PPL then do it then. I've been flying much less time than diving but every time I fly, I learn something. I've learned far more in the 18 months post PPL than I ever did in taking it.
IMHO no point approaching life the way you might a stamp collection, collecting qualifications for the sake of it then not using them to their fullest.
In answer to the original question 'what do you do post ppl?', for me it was buying a plane similar to the one I trained in and then doing as much flying as possible, visiting as many places as I can. Also got IMC for safety's sake. Aim is hour a week flying absolute minimum.
i've been diving 15 years, every time I dive I learn something. So use the skills you've just learned, go enjoy and make the most of them.
A few years down the line if you still fancy flying and can afford to commit to it after the PPL then do it then. I've been flying much less time than diving but every time I fly, I learn something. I've learned far more in the 18 months post PPL than I ever did in taking it.
IMHO no point approaching life the way you might a stamp collection, collecting qualifications for the sake of it then not using them to their fullest.
In answer to the original question 'what do you do post ppl?', for me it was buying a plane similar to the one I trained in and then doing as much flying as possible, visiting as many places as I can. Also got IMC for safety's sake. Aim is hour a week flying absolute minimum.
