How did you justify the cost of the PPL?
 

I have recently secured a job which will enable me to take one 1 hour flying lesson a week, and have a little left over at the end of the month.

The problem is it's around £150 a lesson. That's incredibly high- it would keep petrol in my car for 3 months, or it would pay for my phone contract for a year.

I'd love to learn to fly, but i'm wondering whether I should wait till I get a better paid job (This is my first full time job, as I am 18) or if I should just go for it now.

I know it costs around £7-8k for the PPL, but this would eat up the majority of my salary.

And once I get my PPL, i'd have to hire a plane for £120/hour.

It seems like a very very expensive hobby. How did you justify paying for yours? (Assuming you were not on a big salary when you started)

How did you justify the cost of the PPL?
 

If you are UK based, try the Air League for a Flying Scholarship... They can help with some or all of the cost of a PPL. Good luck.

A number of less expensive options are available.

Flex wing Microlight is probably the cheapest
3 axis Microlight . Modern well built and very practical aircraft....as long as you are not too lardy.:)
Qualify for NPPL

Another option is to learn to fly Gliders....possibly the best form of flying and lessons learnt are invaluable when flying powered aircraft.
Qualifications earned on gliders can be used against hours needed for PPL...although you would have to check the latest rules on this now EASA are the overseeing authority.

Post PPL , join the LAA and be in a group owned aircraft.

Thanks Blink182.

I looked and my nearest Gliding centre is about an hours drive away, and my nearest microlight centre is 25/30 minutes away.

I think the gliding one is a bit too far to travel (IMO)

The microlight one is more reasonable, but it's still £110 an hour.


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But I just realised you only need 25 hours to get the licence... that's just under £3k, which is much more appealing. I'll look further into this, thanks!!!

Why should I have to justify flying? My money, my choice how I spend it.

I started off like you, one hour a month (but then it was £30/hr...). It didn't work well and I took out a bank loan and did it all in 2 weeks.

30 years later, it has cost me a lot of money, and no doubt I'd have a bigger house and a fancy car (and still have a wife) but I wouldn't have had half as much fun watching footie on TV. Life's what you make it and I chose to fly aeroplanes and sod the cost.:ok:

Plenty of us didn't start until we realised that adding the cost of a PPL to our mortgage wouldn't make a significant difference.

I didn't justify it. That's what "disposable income" is about: The money you have left over once all the bills have been paid, is yours to spend without justification.

Justifying the cost of a PPL suggests that getting a PPL is somehow a rational, economical decision. "With a PPL, you can do X or Y cheaper, faster or more efficient." It's not. Learning to fly is about passion, just like most other hobbies.

So don't justify it. Enjoy it! You only live once.

I can't even remember how I managed to afford it when I was 19, but I did work two jobs most of the time. I couldn't afford to fly much up until my mid 30's and for many years didn't.

Now, as I've managed to build a better career for myself I spend far too much money on flying and airplanes. The numbers are frightening when you sit down and add it all up. But you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way - worth every pence. How do you put a price on fun, utility and the very special freedom aviation gives? The view from up there alone is worth the money, if you ask me. Priceless.

As an aside, I see all my friends buying new cars or boats trying to keep up with the Joneses - Audi's, M5's, daycruisers, whatnot - spending $50K+ (or at least borrowing for it) at the drop of a hat. And every time I hear that, all I can think is "I'd much rather drive my 17 year old Jag and spend that money on my aircrafts". To each their own.

I had a small pension kick in a couple of years ago. I have no mortgage or any other debt so I said to the missus offhand one night that I might spend some of the gratuity on a PPL. She said 'Yeah, sounds good' and continued watching the telly.

I needed no further bidding....:}

Having the money upfront was great, I just flew all the time and had enough money left when I'd finished to do my night and IMC plus about 50 hours of random flying.

I budget £300 a month for flying fees (not landings, medicals, maps that sort of thing) which is either just under 4 hours in a 152 or three in a 28/172 on my own. I usually fly with friends who cost share with me so I'm getting about 6 hours a month in on average, although I've clocked up about 200 hours since I started just over two years ago with the training and what have you.

I've found that the most important thing to consider isn't how you fund the actual PPL but how you fund the flying afterwards. I've noticed some of the guys at the club virtually disappear once they have their license, flying the bare minimum to stay current.

I'm humming and arring about buying a share in an a/c at our club which would reduce the cost down to about £70 ph but I like flying the different aircraft and I guess you would feel obliged to fly the a/c you've got a share in.

What are you going to do once you get your licence? In 1964 I saved up enough to get my licence in a full time course - then let it lapse for over 20 years as I could not afford to keep flying. It'll cost you more at an hour a week.
I've now been flying for over 26 years, 1900+hours, since I could afford to regain it in 1987. I had to do almost the whole training again.

I couldn't have said it better myself. :D:D:D The only thing I would add is, it will never be as cheap as right now, so the longer you delay the more expensive it will get.

How do you justify the cost of the PPL?

You can't.. You take it on the chin and get on with it.

It was not too difficult, as when I learned to fly, renting a C150 was $18 per hour wet! The instructor was the more expensive part at $22!

You fly because you have a passion. In addition to the rewards of being airborne, and the master of your fate - in three dimensions. You will also find that you meet and get to know amazing people, who share the passion. Flying has been its own reward my whole adult life, but all the splendid people I have the pleasure of meeting and knowing because of my choice of aviation, has been an even better reward. A couple of them have answered you here.....

I've seen some people take more of a hit from the depreciation of a new car.

There's always a perfectly valid argument against any material purchases, none of which are absolutely necessary. We do the justification bit internally to tell ourselves it is.

Someone once provided me with a simple rule of thumb which has proved correct over the years, which is that "If it flys, floats or 'ahem' :oh:..then it costs a fortune!"

One doesn't "justify" it, one just does it.

There is cost but usually it's a matter of substitution - where I live cars are very expensive (200%+ duty!) It meant that I could fly and buy my own airplane for less thsn the cost of a new RAV4 every three years. I made that choice and choose to fly and have and old car - one added bonus was that I own the only four place fixed gear, fixed prop airplane available for rent in the country and so even with low rental levels I have found that my personal flying nets out at less thsn it costs me to drive to the airport.

The circumstances are unusual but overall it has cost a lot less than I expected.

In your situation if you can manage it I would borrow the money on a five year loan and get the PPL done quickly, then pay the loan on the drip for the next five years. If you have suppporting parents even bolt it on to their mortgage as suggested by another contributor (I assume at you age you don't have a mortgage of hour own), also there are some clever means of intetest free loans via credit cards if you know what you're doing (see moneysavingexpert.com).

It's never going to be cheap to fly but a group around a small permit type airplane should keep the cost down once you have the PPL.

Your GBP130 is a little under three times the price at Sothend about thirty years ago, so overall in "real" terms probably about the same. Seeing what match tickets and train fares are in the UK these days, a flying habit looks like a bargain compared to folloeing a football team - so if you want to fly and can scape the cash together do it.

One further 'justification', when you next apply for a job put flying on your CV and it'll make you stand out from the crowd - so it may have career/income boostingbenefits.

Good luck with it, you'll never regret it - airports the world over have car parks full of old men wistfully watching the airplanes and thinking "if only".

Via gliding, via SLMG, then Group A added on, it was doable on a very modest salary, in chunks. Justification? Well, everyone needs one passion, although I suspect a passion starts as a hobby. Mine just got under the fingernails and into the bloodstream as an addiction.

Unless you can divert into a cheaper route, as per suggestions that are coming at you left, right and centre, you merely have to tell yourself, or the significant other/family/dog, that it'll all be worth it when you buy a share in something economical or a whole something that runs on 2 litres an hour and requires next to no capital outlay for years on end.

Short answer is, you can't, if you want to persuade a brain that requires justification for every pound spent on things other than a roof or food.

But if you want to inhabit a diverse society of fascinating people, mostly benign or better, discover another dimension to the hours not worked or slept and have fun like no fun has ever been, you don't need to.

;)

My local aero club in NZ charges $175 an hour for a Cessna 152. But remember unlike a rental car that includes fuel so excluding fuel the cost is about $100 hour. I currently fly 30 or hours a year so that $3000 year

In the past I have done some calcs in regards to buying my own plane (estimates of costs only)

To buy a Cessna 152 around here would cost about $30-$40000 my mortgage is about 5% so opportunity cost of not putting that money on my mortgage $2000 year, Insurance $2000 year, Hangarage $3000 year (more if I want to be less than 1.5 hours from home), Annual inspection $2000, Engine fund $600 etc etc.

That is $9600 without any unexpected costs which will come up, so if I only fly 30 hours that is $320 hour. That also assumes no depreciation on the aircraft itself

So my aeroclub is an absolute bargain at $100, I am saving $220 every hour I fly, I should fly some more hours so I save even more. In fact my Wife calls that spaving (spending to save)

The strange thing is I still want to buy my own plane, how do I justify that? Easy I am going to lie to myself on my cost spreadsheet .

As a matter of principle I would not borrow money to finance something that's a hobby/passion.

Anytime you borrow money you're sticking your head in a noose, essentially gambling on future income to offset your current expenditures. That's OK for things that you need (like a college education) and even more so for things you need and have a tangible/resale value (like a house or a car), but I don't think it's OK for something frivolous, like pursuing an expensive hobby or passion.

Besides, borrowing money costs money, so at the end of the day your expensive hobby just got even more expensive. And because of the loan, it also becomes psychologically harder to "back out", if the future income doesn't materialize.

That's why I used the words "disposable income". That's the money that's left over once the bills have been paid, and what you can spend on something frivolous without justification. But if you can't pay the flying from the disposable income, you're going to pay it from funds that are really needed somewhere else. And that indeed requires justification. Which there really isn't, not for private flying.

For me personally, I have promised myself that if my disposable income ever falls below the limit where I can spend enough on flying to fly safely (which is about 3000 euros annually), I will simply hang up the headset and pursue a cheaper passion instead. No regrets.

For me, learning to fly is a fulfilling a lifetimes ambition and love of aircraft. If one has to 'justify the cost', that is all the justification I need. Its an expensive hobby, but so is sailing, horseriding, skiing.....to mention but three.

I finally took the plunge when I moved jobs to an airfield and organisation with a relatively cheap Flying Club. I had waited until my mid-30s, settled, with a decent job and reasonable salary. So I understand you want to do it now, but maybe wait a few years....go through university, start your career.....then take up flying.....

Good luck whatever you decide :ok:

GQ