Originally Posted by
SkyHigh
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
I will agree with the last sentence. It does get hard when you watch 300 bux cloud up your statement for 2 hours in a 172. It's really sad, actually. I watched the past 3 years since I got my Private just slip by and I probably was able to fly 10 hours in those past 3 years. My salary hasn't advanced one bit either in those past 3 yrs despite the fact I took on many many more responsibilities at my job. If anything, I'm making less because of inflation, and the rising cost of health insurance which I have to pay for. Point of all this is - The gentleman who said "Life happens when you are too busy planning for it." is completely correct. What have I learned in the past 3 years? The feeling of failure and not doing what I want to do has consumed me. Hell it even changed the way I interact with people. When I was learning to fly I was super confident and optimistic about life.... Finally all this hard work was allowing me to do something I've always wanted to do! But now that I got caught up worrying about money and not spending it (and I don't get to fly anymore) - I have never been so unhappy. So be careful. It's like crack. As soon as you learn how to even taxi on the ground let alone actually fly - you will be hooked. If there was no recession and the airlines didn't stop hiring - I'd probably be at least a CFI by now. I don't know what I'm telling you to do, but I can at least offer what I'm feeling. I want to fly so bad, but I also have to pay rent and school loan. And I certainly can't do all 3.