AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2011 - 32

LICENSETOLEARN

BY ROD MACHADO

The cost of learning to fly

A

t a recent aviation seminar, I listened to a fellow lament the substantial cost of learning to fly. He confessed to spending upwards of $14,500

to fly such a machine, you’d better say that there’s no way you’re going to pay for a TAA today. Persist to insist on flying an affordable basic trainer. If the instructor suddenly feigns a long-term illness or claims he’s been called to join the French Foreign Legion, then you’ve just eliminated an instructor who was more interested in flying an airplane for his entertainment than flying with you for your training. Ka-Ching! You’ve just saved some money. Walking into a flight school without any idea of to obtain his private pilot certificate. Ka-Ching! To the type of instructor you want and need is also a very bad strategy. This is why you want to be him, aviation was too expensive for the average Joe. Rod Machado is a an educated consumer. You want to find a flight So I asked a few questions about his flight training CFI and aviation experience. Here’s what I discovered. instructor who loves to teach, and who uses a very speaker with more When our friend, Lament Man, signed up for simple and practical syllabus that emphasizes the than 8,000 flight flight training the FBO suggested that he train in essentials of stick-and-rudder flying. hours. the airplane he’d most likely fly after receiving his In one sense, some parts of our aviation training certificate. That resulted in scheduling a technoindustry have come under the influence of a very logically advanced (glass cockpit) airplane for his lessons. big Jedi mind trick. What trick is that? It’s the belief that it’s When I asked The Lamenter how he’d selected a flight not possible to produce a safe, competent private pilot close instructor, he said the FBO simply assigned him one—as if to the minimum flight time specified in the FARs. While the they opened a closet, pulled one off a rack, and said, “Here, reasons for this are far too numerous to elaborate here, let it make this fit.” Furthermore, he never used any type of flight- be said that a private pilot taught primarily with emphasis on simulation device at home to assist in his training. The FBO stick-and-rudder skills is far less likely to end up bending an told him to stay away from desktop simulators because they airplane or a few bones. Statistically, nearly half of all accidents don’t handle like real airplanes. are the takeoff, approach, landing, stall, and spin type. Good Are you hearing the warning klaxons sound? Our friend stick-and-rudder skills are the antidote to these problems. made choices that dramatically increased the cost of his flight So how can you identify a good stick-and-rudder instructraining, most likely doubling the price he paid for his private tor? I suggest you find out how long on average it takes for an pilot certificate. Surely there’s a way to earn the private certifi- instructor’s students—those who train two to three times a cate at less cost, right? There is. Let me explain. week—to obtain their private pilot certificates. Compare these If you elect to do your primary training in a technologically numbers to the national average training time (approximately advanced airplane (TAA), then you should have a technically 70.1 hours) and the FAA minimum time for the private ceradvanced bank account. That’s one having a big pipe that tificate (40 hours). You’re looking for an instructor capable of moves money from your bank directly to the FBO’s bank. TAAs training you closer to the FAA’s minimum than to the national often rent at twice the cost of traditional two- and four-place average training time. aircraft. If you’re on a budget, there’s no good reason to start Finally, Lament Man’s FBO wasn’t incorrect in stating that a training in anything but the simplest airplane that you can desktop flight simulator doesn’t handle like a real airplane. On afford. If that’s a J–3 Cub or an LSA, all the better. Learning in the other hand, I’ve flown real airplanes that didn’t handle like an airplane with traditional gauges instead of a glass cockpit real airplanes. When using a desktop simulation device, you’re won’t make you less of a pilot. But it will most definitely make not trying to replicate the actual flying experience. Your objecyou a pilot. As a budget-conscious primary student, that is tive is to reinforce the motor, perceptual, and cognitive skills your objective. You can learn to poke buttons on advanced you learned on the previous lesson. Any reasonable desktop avionics equipment just as easily right after you graduate from simulator will serve this function, and such a device can easily reduce the time and cost of flight training by 10 percent. private pilot school. Here is where it’s important to understand our all-tooIs flight training too expensive? It almost certainly will be human nature. People respond to incentives, and flight if you’re not an educated consumer. So, find yourself a good instructors are people. Given a choice between a TAA and a flight instructor, a two-place steam-gauge airplane, and some basic training airplane, and without any input from you, a simulation software, and you’re in a position to earn a private flight instructor might suggest that you learn in a TAA. And why certificate at a much more reasonable cost. shouldn’t he? To him it’s exciting, because the cockpit lights up like a Christmas tree on steroids. So, unless you can afford Visit the author’s blog (www.rodmachado.com). 32 • APRIL 2011

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2011
