The Cost To Get Your Private Pilot License | HOW TO SAVE MONEY | A Real Breakdown
In this video we're answering the second question I get asked the most, how much does it cost to get your private pilot's license? The breakdown coming up! Hey guys Carl with the Aviation Guys here, and on this channel we like to go on flights, give training tips, gadget reviews and grow the aviation community so if you like what you see consider subscribing! Now let's get going. In our last video we talked about what it takes to get your private pilot license, or rather private pilot certificate which is what it's actually called. You can check that video out up here, but after people find out that I'm working towards a private pilot license they usually say, "I hear that's expensive, how much does it cost?" Well my answer is, it depends.
There's a lot of variables that come into play when you're working towards your private pilot license but to be honest it's gonna cost a good chunk of change. So today I'm not gonna only go over how much it's gonna cost but cost-saving tips that you can do along the way. Straight up there are two ways that you can get your private pilot license, by going privately through an instructor or going to a school. There's pros and cons to each one of those, but we're gonna save those for another video. Today we're focusing strictly on cost. So, let's go ahead and get started by getting your license privately with an instructor. Now let's set some standards. The minimum to get your private pilot license is 40 hours, but most people are doing it on average of 65 to 70. So, we're gonna take that 65 number and base all of our calculations off it. Even people who go to flight schools are averaging that 65 hour mark. So, to make things realistic we're just gonna choose that number looking at expensive there's only a couple of things that you need to focus on aircraft cost instructor cost ground school materials like books headsets and charts and testing so let's break these down aircraft cost this is going to be the single most expensive part of your training and age size avionics fuel consumption really dictates the price of a rental but typically older aircraft rent for less and more better-equipped newer aircraft rent for more but for this situation we're gonna take the average cost of a Cessna 172 $125 per hour typically with fuel and multiply that times at 65 which gives us eight thousand one hundred and twenty-five dollars you can save money on aircraft rentals by renting smaller older airplanes in my area actually found a Cessna 152 renting for $85 an hour with fuel and that's fantastic and I could save even more money by buying my hours up front and bulk where I could save in or between five to ten dollars per hour depending on how many bulk hours I purchased at a time you can also save money by joining a local Flying Club where you trade better rates for rentals for monthly dues but just make sure that you do your math first to make sure that it's right for you last and certainly not the cheapest option is to buy your own airplane or join a partnership the only catch to this is you actually own a plane now and you have to pay for maintenance and things like that but depending on your aviation goals this may be the best option for you in the long term your second biggest cost is going to be your instructor and instructors will charge differently based on their experience or teaching style but the average that I found inside of my area is about $50 per hour but you're gonna need about 55 hours of this in the total and that comes out to about two thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars saving money on an instructor can be hard you really get what you pay for I've heard of some instructors charging $20 an hour but they're brand-new and you're really paying them to learn how to teach other instructors know what their time is worth and charge accordingly so the best way to be able to save money on instruction is make sure you use their time wisely come prepared ask for homework and extend your lesson times to at least two hours ground school now this one's a hard one to put a number on because there's so many different ways that you can take it you can get it from your instructor you can take it from a local course or even online but with variables like how you learn and how long it takes you to apply what you've learned it could really varies you could be with your instructor for anywhere from five to ten hours ground courses typically lasts a weekend and if you can't get it all in you might not do well so we're gonna put a dollar amount on this base off of an online course that allows you to learn at your own rate and that's gonna be anywhere between two and three hundred dollars to save money on ground school I highly recommend using an online course because again it allows you to go at your own pace and learn how you learned and a lot of them are very comprehensive offering a guarantee that if you don't pass your written you'll get your money back if you choose to use your instructor asked about reduced rates for classroom time a lot of them are very accommodating next up is materials there's only couple of things you really need for your pilot training some sectional charts a book or two and a headset the headsets can cost anywhere from a hundred dollars to over a thousand but all in you only need to spend about three hundred dollars saving money on materials is really easy only buy what you need in fact the FAA publishes a lot of the books you can read online in PDF form so you can read them on your phone or your tablet I actually have links for these down in the description as far as the headset goes you can buy an inexpensive one might only cost me a hundred and ten dollars later on I know I can buy a more expensive one and then use the one I currently have for my friends and family but if you're unsure of what materials to get I have a link down in the description that you can follow that will show you all the materials and things that you actually need and when to get them throughout your training process and if you're still unsure you can always ask your instructor blast is testing testing is another one of those variable costs based on where you live your written test has to be taken inside of a testing center which can cost you anywhere between 100 to 150 dollars your last two tests the oral and checkride are usually bundled together under the same price and find those anywhere between five and seven hundred dollars you can save money on your written test by calling around to different testing centers and see how much they charge the test is standardized at every location so it really depends on how much you want to drive I'll have a link in the description below that will tell you where your local testing centers are the same goes for your checker I'd call a couple designated pilot examiner's and see what their pricing is but also check with your instructor to see how that examiner works with the students some are really picky where others are a lot more laid-back alright it's math time we're gonna take the maximum number here and add them up and remember we're multiplying our rates by 65 so 8125 for the plane 2,750 for the instructor 300 for ground school 300 for materials and 850 for testing plus 375 dollars for the plane rental which is about three hours for the check ride and that comes to 12 thousand seven hundred dollars remember how I said it was going to cost a good chunk of change this is a realistic number what you can expect to pay to have your pilot training but again you can save money using the that I gave you inside of the video now let's compare this to flight schools flight schools take everything we just talked about and wrap them up into a nice neat little package and that's a huge benefit for you but with those benefits come extra costs I've seen flight school charge anywhere between fifteen thousand to nineteen thousand dollars to get a private pilot license but flight schools have their benefits like access to airplanes instructors and materials a lot more readily than you could if you're doing it on your own again that's a whole nother discussion for another video to save money at school you just have to talk to a recruiter ask them what the average timeframe it takes for our students to complete the program also ask them what the average price students pay to complete it if they don't know that should be a red flag but also make sure that you're asking about other costs you could eclair along the way above all check how they want to be paid some schools want to be paid upfront for the entire program this may not work for you if you decide later on the school isn't for you so that's it that's all you should need to know about the cost of your private pilot license now the best money saving tip that I can give you is to save up your money and do your flight training all at once doing it as quickly as possible to help you get below that 65 hour average and help you save the most money in the end hey guys thanks for watching the video if you liked it make sure to give it a thumbs up and hit that subscribe button also tell us what you think inside of the comments down below as always share aviation wherever you can and we'll see in the next one
