Money and Homework
This weekend I decided to buy all the resources I needed for the ground school studies along with paying for 45 more hours of lessons, groundschool, fuel surcharges and landing fees, along with annual membership of the flight school. Expensive outlay but at least I can concentrate on flying rather than the financial aspects afterwards. Hopefully that will cover most of my costs until I achieve the PPL, excluding the actual checkride. For the benefit of others thinking of learning, to date I have spent around £1200.00 prior to this weekend and now have spent £6,500.00 so approximately £7,700.00, in my opinion a small price to pay for the privilege of flight.
Having now been armed with stacks of books, charts, rulers and a flight computer.. oh and some shiny new pens(?!?), I decided that as I wasn't flying this weekend I should make a start at learning the theory. To begin with I have to take and pass a written exam in Air Law & Communications and a Radiography test before I solo, therefore I gingerly began my studies with the appropriately labelled books. I will be taking ground school classes also shortly to reinforce self-study.
The fact is that every pilot has to absorb unholy amounts of information, this to me is somewhat encouraging. If the same principles were applied to the road you would not see so many muppets driving around. In my opinion, before someone is allowed to touch the driving seat of a car they should first have to undergo much stricter and a much deeper level of training than they currently receive.
Anyway, roll on Tuesday and my next flying lesson.
Having now been armed with stacks of books, charts, rulers and a flight computer.. oh and some shiny new pens(?!?), I decided that as I wasn't flying this weekend I should make a start at learning the theory. To begin with I have to take and pass a written exam in Air Law & Communications and a Radiography test before I solo, therefore I gingerly began my studies with the appropriately labelled books. I will be taking ground school classes also shortly to reinforce self-study.
The fact is that every pilot has to absorb unholy amounts of information, this to me is somewhat encouraging. If the same principles were applied to the road you would not see so many muppets driving around. In my opinion, before someone is allowed to touch the driving seat of a car they should first have to undergo much stricter and a much deeper level of training than they currently receive.
Anyway, roll on Tuesday and my next flying lesson.
posted by Chris @ Sunday, July 03, 2005
3 Comments:
At Monday, July 04, 2005 1:31:00 am,
Oshawapilot said…
I wish I had made the same decision to save up cash ahead of time and then prepay all of my training. I would have been completed mine long ago if I had done this, as my current method of paying week-to-week creates unfortunate financial stresses on occasion. :-)
The cost of your licence is obviously very high compared to here. I just did the conversion, and your quoted dollar (Er, Pound) figure comes out to about $16,500 Canadian dollars. Here, about half of that or slightly over would get you a PPL.
Sad to see it's so expensive there.
From the sounds of your training so far and your mention of the pre-solo tests, it sounds as if your Syllabus there is very similar to Canada.
Here, before solo, we have to pass a "PStar" test (A general knowledge test relating to air law, radio, procedures, etc) and we also have to obtain our aviation radio licence. Sounds pretty much the same as your experiences.
And I wholeheartedly agree about the testing stardards for automobile drivers. We could do for the exact same situation here.
At Monday, July 04, 2005 9:16:00 am,
Chris said…
The costs here for learning to fly, as far as I know are the most expensive in the world. Aircraft ownership also appears to be more expensive here than the US or Canada (not sure about elsewhere).
Before starting my flight training I did consider learning in the US. Several US schools provide JAR PPLs at about a third of the cost! Unfortunately that option was not really viable for me as I can't afford the time (three weeks away) due to work and family commitments. Also I guess it is better to learn in my home environment.
By pre-paying for the course, I was entitled to a 5% discount which goes someway to reducing the costs.
The course does sound very similiar to yours, I guess the training is pretty much standard between the different civil aviation authorities.
At Wednesday, July 06, 2005 12:36:00 am,
Anonymous said…
Chris,
The ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) provide international standards for aviation world wide. The core training syllabus will be the same no matter where you learn, its the optional subjects (eg spins) that may be different.
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