Originally Posted by
rickair7777
I'm gonna disagree here. We are talking about recreational flying...
Everybody is entitled to have some fun, whatever they want it to be. If you don't have a family yet there's nothing that wrong with spending all of your money on fun (although I would recommend investing a portion of your income while young...it goes a lot further at that age).
I think recreational flying is within a reasonable cost bracket for the typical young working professional...it's near the upper end so you might have to budget your other activities while training, but it's doable without going into debt.
I was in my local flight school today and noticed that the rental price on a 152 went up to $100/hour. An instructor is another $50. Once getting trained staying current is also very expensive.
Other hobbies cost money as well. A guy could pay 10 to 15K getting a private license or buy a Harley Davidson. At least once the Harley becomes boring it can be sold and the money used to buy something else.
It costs a lot of money to learn how to fly and once spent it is gone forever. I agree that a guy needs a recreational outlet but flying for fun is not the same as going to a football game or playing XBox.
Unless you are wealthy and have a lot of time on your hands getting a private license is usually a dead end. It gets old slapping down the plastic to the tune of a few hundred every time you want to do a few touch and goes.
Skyhigh