Best way to acquire private license these days?

[BeechSkipperDude]

Howdy!

As a teenager, I took around 25 flight and 25 ground hours in a single engine plane. Ever solo'd but as I'm older now I would love to work toward getting my license in the future.

How is the best way to do it now? Paying for a rental? Group purchasing a plane?

Thanks!

 

[AvNavCom]

I would join a local flying club. There are usually CFIs who are members, you'll have access to planes in a way that you won't get at most flight schools, and you can take things at your own pace regarding certificates and ratings. I strongly recommend AGAINST buying an aircraft until you reach a point that you realize you love flying more than you love money.

 

[Dana]

Your options will vary depending on where you are. A flying club can make sense if there's a good one; they can vary from a few pilots with one airplane to large groups with several airplanes and varying levels of usage (i.e. availability). You may have a local FBO with a good flight school, or one that's not so good to work with. Best is to visit the local airport(s) and inquire what your options are.

 

[bonefishpete]

Learned at an old style FBO years ago. They did the parking, fueling, maintenance, charter, aircraft sales. They had rental planes an instructor or two. Sadly pretty much a thing of the past. Now my son is about to get his ppl soon. It’s your modern flight school with a lot of foreign students. He has a young American instructor and seems the teaching is good. It expensive compared to my experience years ago but everything is. C172 $170 hour, Instructor $60 hour. Without owning a plane just about the only game in town near me.

 

[ateamer]

Learning to own a plane at the same time as learning to fly it is a tall order. It’s been done. But when you rent, if a tire is flat, or a spark plug isn’t firing, or the GPS fails, you simply go to the desk and get a different plane. If it’s your plane, get your checkbook out and leave room at the end of the line to write in more zeroes.

 

[bonefishpete]

Learning to own a plane at the same time as learning to fly it is a tall order. It’s been done. But when you rent, if a tire is flat, or a spark plug isn’t firing, or the GPS fails, you simply go to the desk and get a different plane. If it’s your plane, get your checkbook out and leave room at the end of the line to write in more zeroes.

Exactly my son’s school I counted 30 C172’s. He has never had a scheduled cancellation except for weather. I considered buying a C150 but the maintenance and insurance along with tie down fueling etc made it a no go.

 

[4RNB]

Howdy!

As a teenager, I took around 25 flight and 25 ground hours in a single engine plane. Ever solo'd but as I'm older now I would love to work toward getting my license in the future.

How is the best way to do it now? Paying for a rental? Group purchasing a plane?

Thanks!

Cash or check.

 

[Albany Tom]

Howdy!

As a teenager, I took around 25 flight and 25 ground hours in a single engine plane. Ever solo'd but as I'm older now I would love to work toward getting my license in the future.

How is the best way to do it now? Paying for a rental? Group purchasing a plane?

Thanks!

I'm bolding the part above that jumped out at me. Learning to fly was on my 'to do' list for a long time, too. In my view it'll stay there until you decide to just do it. Then commit. It's way cheaper to dive in and get it done than it is to spread it out and put it off. Not because of motivation, but because there are a lot of things to learn, knowledge and skills both, and if you spread that out you won't learn anywhere near as efficiently. Just my 2 cents as someone that's more likely to regret what I don't do than what I do.

 

[PilotRPI]

I would join a local flying club. There are usually CFIs who are members, you'll have access to planes in a way that you won't get at most flight schools, and you can take things at your own pace regarding certificates and ratings. I strongly recommend AGAINST buying an aircraft until you reach a point that you realize you love flying more than you love money.

Last line made me laugh, so true. A friend off mine raced vintage cars and he said something that rang true "start with a stack of hundreds. One by one, slowly set one on fire, watch it burn, then move to the next, if at any point this makes you uncomfortable [XYZ] is not for you."

I would try and fly at least once a week to try and maintain proficiency. That may mean scheduling more than one lesson a week depending where you are so you can hedge against weather. I'm in New England sitting and waiting for it to either get close to freezing or for the winds to stop howling.

 

[Gary Ward]

Howdy!

As a teenager, I took around 25 flight and 25 ground hours in a single engine plane. Ever solo'd but as I'm older now I would love to work toward getting my license in the future.

How is the best way to do it now? Paying for a rental? Group purchasing a plane?

Thanks!

IMO the best way is to fly out of the closest airport that has a flight school. Because you will driving to the flight school a lot. Once a week is not often enough to get it done and at that rate it would take a long time and cost more.
My school was 15 miles away, I flew 1-3 times a week and it took me 18 months to get my PPL. I put many miles on my truck learning to fly. At the end I scheduled 3 times a week and flew on average twice a week to get to my check ride. It cost me a lot of money and time off work. The flight school always made sure I had a plane to fly.

Later when I earned my instrument rating I used my own recently purchased plane and that was much more stressful making sure it was ready to go for a training flight. I could not have done that during my primary training.

A flight school seems like the way to go so you have a plane fly when you can fly?
BTW it was totally worth it.
Go for it and good luck.

 

[StraightnLevel]

IMO the best way is to fly out of the closest airport that has a flight school. Because you will driving to the flight school a lot. Once a week is not often enough to get it done and at that rate it would take a long time and cost more.

What he said, absolutely. Plan for at least twice as many flights as you think are necessary. It will still take more. Weather, maintenance, illness, etc. will give you a far lower "hit rate" on training flights than you expect. It will be even worse with your own plane, as you lose the ability to shift to an alternate plane or CFI on any given day.

I'm doing my instrument training in a school rental, even though I have my own plane. When I'm with the CFI, I want to be focused on the lesson, not the plane.

 

[RussR]

Howdy!

As a teenager, I took around 25 flight and 25 ground hours in a single engine plane. Ever solo'd but as I'm older now I would love to work toward getting my license in the future.

How is the best way to do it now? Paying for a rental? Group purchasing a plane?

Thanks!

You're not giving us much of anything to work with here, to advise you. What is "best" depends on what your definition of "best" is. Cheapest? Quickest? Towards what ultimate flying goal? (The best method for someone wanting to ultimately fly for the airlines can be dramatically different than for someone who wants to land on gravel bars and go camping.)

For some people, the "best" training would be full-immersion, 5-7 days per week, 2 flights a day, accelerated training, at a flight school that has multiple airplanes so there is no downtime, somewhere in another state so you are away from outside distractions. In fact, I think most people would say that's one of the best ways to learn. But that might not be the best for you if you have a job and a family.

Or if, for example, your goal is to buy a Cirrus and fly it around the country, then the best training might be for you to go to one of the schools that does Private Pilot training in Cirrus aircraft. Of course, that may be too expensive for your budget.

Many people advocate training in tailwheel aircraft as the best training, since they believe it makes you a better pilot. But since those schools are somewhat uncommon, that may not work for you if it requires traveling to another state for an extended period of time.

The local flight school is usually the first option considered. But what is their training like? Their maintenance/aircraft availability/instructor ability and experience/etc?

It really all comes down to what your goal is, what your budget is, what your timeline is, and your job/family situation. Give us some more details and we can give a little more targeted advice.

 

[Matthew]

The relentless application of money.

I’ve trained with very fresh CFIs with minimum hours where the only experience they had was in a training environment. And I’ve trained with grizzled old CFIs with a LOT of experience in seriously varied environments.

I’ve learned something new from every one of them.

Interview CFIs, be honest with yourself and the CFI about how you learn. The CFI can help you figure out a way to get that training.

 

[Pinecone]

1) Have the funds available to do it before you start. You want to be able to fly often and not have big breaks. But DO NOT PREPAY for any flying. Too many stories of schools going out of business and students loosing their money. It is OK to buy small (10 hour or so) blocks of time at a discount.

2) Check out local schools and clubs. Even to taking a demo lesson with them. Each will have a personality, you need to find the one that fits best with you.

My local airport FBO has a nice school. 5 C-172. Plenty of instructors, most or all are American born and raised. I have flown with several and they are good. No real club locally.

Another option is to check with local Community Colleges for aviation programs. In Maryland, Community College of Baltimore County has a program. They have simulators and agreements with local FBOs for the flight training program. The local FBO to me is part of this program. I think the overall cost is cheaper than doing to straight with the FBO, but you may have to do some driving to attend ground school classes.