Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesNoBrakes
Lots of stuff don't add up there. Your CFI is only charging you for airplane time? Not briefing, ground operations and GROUND SESSIONS? Also, your examiner's fees don't seem realistic, your aircraft rental+fees is more like $700, NOT including books and supplies. The checkride is usually longer than most of your local flights due to doing "everything". Add in 5-10 extra hours per course past the minimums for a reasonable amount as well.
That cost for the rentals is also well below the "average", and people aren't raking in money on rentals. I'd be highly suspicious of maintenance and saving a few bucks is NEVER worth risking your life. One of the most important piloting lessons.
ATP is priced competitiveness, they aren't "raking in the cash" due to their prices. They might be relative to their volume of students. If you are charging less than $140/hr or so for a new Cessna 172, you are probably losing money, and those bigger schools usually do very good maintenance and spare little expense making sure the operations are safe.
How are you planning on completing groundschool and taking the knowledge tests?
1. With all the time-building...even if you go over the minimums it doesn't cost extra because additional time is subtracted from the cost of time building. At the end of the day you still end up paying for 250 hours of flight time.
2. How much do you pay for examiners fees? The average is around $400 per checkride. Books are around $200 for each rating, some less.
3. No my CFI doesn't charge me just for flight time, but you have to take into consideration "solo time". He doesn't charge me when i'm out flying solo. So for exaple, I took my PPL checkride when I had 40.3 hours. But I had well over 10 hours of solo time. Make sense?
4. Yes, the flying is below average...but the planes are 30-40 years old, it's a flying club, and it's at 6,000 feet elevation (fuel cost is lower).
5. You do groundschool on your own. Read all the books and do some groundschool with your CFI for any items you don't understand or need help with.
6. ATP is a cashcow...they're making a killing off their business. They pay their CFIs squat, save money on fuel by buying bulk, save on maintenance costs by having students fly to maintenance bases and consolidating their maintenance facilities etc.
I'm not saying ATP is a BAD school, they're just REALLY expensive. Sort of like Embry-Riddle.