Are you going to learn to fly now?

by Sanjeev ~ January 12th, 2009. Filed under: Flying educational.

I hope is pretty clear by now that I love flying and that my second most favorite thing is writing about flying.

I was looking through by logbook the other day, partly to work my total flying hours and partly as a trip down memory lane. Then the thought stuck me. How much money had I spent in my flying career? How much had it cost me to learn to fly?

I was curious to learn the answer to this question, so I broke out the calculator. Finish off my PPL cost me…bash..bash…my IMC rating cost me…blah..blah. Just after this, my calculator overheated and I needed a strong coffee. I never did get the answer to my question but I know that all of my flying could probably have bought a house or two!

This started me thinking about the problems with the world’s finances. They are in worse shape than mine! Companies are going bankrupt left, right and centre. People are going to jail for fraud and others are unable to pay their mortgages. How could people justify the money needed to learn to fly these days?

P51 Mustang

This would mean that a smaller number of people would be learning to fly, surely? Banks aren’t willing to lend any money to people to purchase houses, so I’ll bet that they’ll be even less likely to fund a pilot certificate.

And yet looking around my local flying schools, there doesn’t seem to be a reduction in the number of people milling around, inquiring about flying. Airplanes are still as hard to book as ever, and instructors are still hard to collar on a nice flying day. Recession, what recession?

So I guess my question is, in the current economic climate, are you still going to learn to fly or have you put it off until things get better?

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thesidman 5 months ago 1 point
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I guess the people who would learn to fly need to be fairly affluent, but surprised to see numbers haven't dwindled!

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1 /people/thesidman/ /people/thesidman/following/ http://www.cricketinginfo.com

notjustified 4 months ago 1 point
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I have the means to obtain my Pilot Certificate but just can't seem to justify the cost. Unless you are able to fly jet and making money doing it. It's nothing more than a very expensive hobby. I have researched it and there is no financial benefit to having your ppl.

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