True Cost of Flight Training
Hi Everyone,
My goal is to eventually fly for the airlines so I've been doing research on flight schools in my area. While looking at schools I noticed a few price inconsistencies. I live in a major city so all local flight schools are about a 1hr 30min drive. To give you a general idea of costs I'll refer to the flight schools' quote on a PPL. Most flight schools said that I should expect to pay 13,000 to 16,000 for a PPL. Some flight schools a bit farther from the city (about 3hr drive plus toll costs) are saying 8,000-10,000. Jason Shappert of MzeroA wrote in his book that a PPL should cost $6,000-$10,000. So, $6,000-$16,000 is a HUGE range and all flight schools I looked at use similar equipment (C172, PA28, and a few C152s on the cheaper end).
Another thing I noticed is that the national average of hours needed to get a PPL varied from school to school. Some said 60, 65, 70, 75, even 80. Hmm... I thought a national average is only one number, not five. I get the feeling that some instructors focus heavily on getting to their quoted "national average" and would be reluctant to sign off a student below that number. So if an instructor tells you that the average is 80 hours and trains you to 77-83 hours, how do you know that the school isn't just taking more money from you and that you weren't ready 20 hours ago, closer to the 60hr average another school quoted.
I am not sure who to trust at this point. Perhaps a packaged flight training program is better than an hourly? So why the large differences in price and average hours? How much should I be paying for my flight training, and how many hours should I expect to complete it? What is the best option for flight training (except buying an airplane)? Can anyone recommend a program anywhere in the US? Thank you all for your help!