How To Get Private Pilots License – The cost of obtaining your pilot’s license ultimately depends on the type of pilot’s license you wish to obtain. The level of license you need depends on the type of flying you want to do. For example, a sport pilot’s license might be ideal if you want to fly for fun, but a commercial pilot’s license would be a great first step in an aviation career.
Different licenses require different levels of ground and flight instruction and have different testing requirements. It can be complicated to understand, so let’s simplify it with our friend “Jim” who wants to be a pilot. We follow “Jim” as he works to become a pilot.
How To Get Private Pilots License
By the end of this article you will understand not only how much each type of pilot license costs, but why it costs so much and how you can save serious $$$ on your flight training.
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By the way, there really is no such thing as a pilot’s license, the correct term in aviation is a pilot’s certificate, but hey, almost everyone calls it a license, so we’ll settle for that to explain our purposes today.
If you are interested in the cheapest airline certificates you can get, you can click here to see our article on the cheapest airline certificates you can get.
What type of pilot license should you get? Of course, whether you want to fly for fun or become a commercial pilot, it doesn’t matter, everyone starts at the bottom with a private pilot license (we’ll save talking about sport pilot licenses until the end of the article. )
It’s January 1st and Jim has made a New Year’s resolution to become a pilot. He immediately begins flight training. There are several certifications or “pilot license levels” as part of his journey. The progression of becoming a pilot is like this:
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Now we know that Jim needs to get his private pilot’s license first before his instrument rating or commercial pilot’s license. So how much does it cost Jim?
Find out how our private pilot ground school can help you save money on getting your private pilot certificate.
So Jim starts his online ground school on January 1st to help him prepare for his flight training and the FAA Private Pilot Written Exam (60 question, multiple choice test). He signed up for ground school and finished it in two weeks, spending about 50 hours of total study time on the course. Since Jim finished his elementary school, he had a lot of knowledge and easily passed his FAA written exam. Jim has spent about $500 so far.
He then went to his local flight school (he chose his flight school using our guide here) and took his first flight lesson. Flying lessons vary in cost depending on how long each lesson lasts, but he correctly estimated each lesson to be between $300-$450. After his first lesson, Jim asked his Certified Flight Instructor (CFI) for a recommendation on which doctor to use to get his medical certificate.
Private Pilot Licence (ppl)
Jim studies hard, flies at least 5 days a week, and earns his private pilot’s license on February 15th after completing it with the FAA for $650.
In total, Jim learned to fly for about 6 weeks and earned his pilot’s license for $8,527. Also Jim has logged 44.2 total flight hours, which is more than the FAA’s minimum of 40 flight hours to be a private pilot, but good. 73.1 hours below the national average in 2020.
Although we explain this in more detail in another article here. We will briefly describe what you will get from your 40 hours of flight training.
Assume you pay $100 an hour to rent a plane, pay a flight instructor $60 an hour, and pay $60 an hour for the time they train you in the air and on the ground.
The Private Pilot License Defined And Understood
How Jim got a $7,425 bill from the flight school and his other fees totaled $8,527 for his private pilot’s license.
You’ve probably heard of pilots flying VFR (Visual Flight Rules) or IFR (Instrument Flight Rules). We’ve all heard about how JFK Jr. collapsed. Because he does not know how to fly his plane in bad weather. Jim heard about it too, and he doesn’t want that to happen to him, so he decides on March 1st to rate his equipment.
Like any other pilot license, Jim must take a “ground school” course to study for flight training and the FAA pilot test (the FAA written exam is required at all levels of the pilot license and the FAA requires you to have ground training and certification of your test readiness before you are allowed to take the written test).
It’s important to note that Jim doesn’t need to get his instrument rating right now, but it’s a good idea to get it before you go get your commercial pilot’s license, because no company will hire you without that rating (note: in aviation, we have “certificates,” commonly called licenses, and we have “ratings.” You must earn a certificate first, and you can add additional “instrument ratings” later).
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Jim studies hard again and takes about 3 weeks to complete the IFR online ground school course, get approved to take the written exam from the course, and then complete the test at his local test center. While studying, he flies solo, making short trips of 50 miles or so, counting toward his “land” flight time, which requires at least 50 hours’ worth of time before he enters his IFR.
Jim also returns to flight school in early April and begins working with his Instrument Flight Instructor (CFII) on his required 15 hours of training. By the end of April, Jim had logged a total of 115.8 hours and spent approximately $17,522 since January 1.
Now all Jim has to do is spend another $650 to take the FAA Instrument Pilot Checklist, which he will pass since he took the online course. It is important to note that all the flight students who used the check were successful in their first attempt, thus saving a lot of money. If you fail a check, you have to pay it again before you can try again and pay for additional training, which quickly adds up to costs. Fortunately, Jim had no problem flying the checks and has now spent over $18,000 to become an instrument-rated private pilot with approximately 117.2 hours of flight time.
So how much does a commercial pilot license cost? Well, I hope you can see by now that in order for Jim or anyone to become a commercial pilot, they must first complete their private pilot training and probably get an instrument rating. One of the reasons it makes financial sense to get your instrument rating after you get your private pilot’s license is because you need to get 250 logged flight hours before you can become a commercial pilot. As you can see in our cost breakdown, the most expensive part of being a pilot is usually the flight time (rental plane). If you want to log flight time anyway, you can let that time get your instrument rating instead of flying around for fun.
Private Pilot License Europe
The original 117.2 flight hours logged until Jim received his instrument rating were all part of the 250 hour requirement to become a commercial pilot. That means Jim would get 10 or more hours of training from his flight instructor (CFI) and fly another 122.8 hours solo (he could fly all that time aboard a CFI, but he would have to pay for it. That flight instructor might sit next to him, so he might fly solo or with friends to help share the cost).
This flight to increase flight time is one of the most fun Jim will have as a pilot. It is now May 1st and summer is almost here. The weather is improving, and at this point Jim’s main task is to rent a plane and fly anywhere he likes in the country, increasing his flight time to a total of 250 hours. Jim at this point spends more a week than a gambling addict in a casino, but hey, it depends on him getting that great job as a commercial pilot.
It takes about 2 months for Jim to fly for fun. A lifetime of traveling to new places in his charter plane and taking a commercial pilot ground school course in his spare time. As of July 1, Jim has 240
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