You can use a coupon!
For a while now I’ve been thinking that I’d like to get my private pilot’s license, so I’ve decided that once daylight saving time begins, I’ll start taking lessons. Does anyone have a recommendation for a good instructor? I’d prefer one based out of Reid-Hillview, since I live just off Capitol. Also, how long should it take, and how much should it cost? (I know those answers are dependent on how much flight time I need before I feel comfortable taking the exams, but I’m just looking for an average.) Lisa’s dad has his license so he was able to give me a bit of an idea, but he got his out of Hollister so I’m not sure if there’s a difference. Also, I’d like to get my IFR and probably also multi-engine; but I’ve heard some people say that it’s a good idea to wait a while after getting VFR before getting IFR. Is there any merit to that?
Lisa and I are also getting serious about buying a new home, and this time we’ve even got a realtor helping us find houses that we might be interested in. It’s sort of off to a slow start, since the market is kind of slow right now anyway, but I’m hoping it will pick up soon. Also I don’t think we’ve adequately explained to the realtor quite what we’re looking for, and how little work we’re actually willing to do to the house. We’re hoping to move sometime this year, but I’m not sure whether that’s realistic. Fortunately we don’t have any urgent need, so we don’t have to settle for something; but I’d still like to get it over with as quickly as possible.
January 20th, 2006 at 1:15 am
Hey Eric… Mid pointed me at your post… I just finished my long cross county (need to make my own bloggity blog post about that) and should get my license within… oh… three months.
Anyway, your questions, in order:
1. I train at Palo Alto, so I don’t know the instructor situation at RHV; I’ll ask my instructor if he knows of anyone he’d recommend. I’d definitely recommend my instructor, as well as a couple of other instructors, at PAO; if you feel like commuting, let me know, and I’ll give you their names.
2. Ahh… the good ol’ how long and how much money. The short answer is: depends and all of it.
Length of time is mostly a function of how often you’ll be flying, specifically, how often per week. If you’re going to fly once a week, don’t bother. Most people do 2-3 times a week. I’ve seen people get their licenses in 3-4 weeks if they’re flying more than that.
I’ve personally been a student for WAYYYY too long… but that’s because I stopped and started and stopped and started and switched instructors a couple of times. If you don’t do that and fly 2-3+ times a week, you can probably get it done within a summer.
Technically, the FAA requires 40 hours of flight time for a VFR license; the national average is about 70 hours of flight time, and the Bay Area average is about 90 hours, mostly due to complex airspace and radio communication rules that students must learn to safely operate in the Bay Area.
You should plan an on initial outlay of… maybe $800-$1000 in materials (headset, charts, plotters, flight bag if you want to get spiffy, etc.), and then $90-$100/hobbs hour of flight time (in a standard three hour lesson, you’ll probably incur about 2.4ish hours of Hobbs time), and then $50-$60/wall clock hour for the instructor. A lot of publications say estimate $8,000-$10,000 for the VFR license, but that’s based on the national average, so it’s probably more here (I know I’ve paid more
3. Waiting awhile to get your IFR ticket: I’d agree with that sentiment. There are some requirements that force you to do that (40 hours of cross country time before you can get your IFR ticket, I believe it is), but you also shouldn’t be in a rush to get your IFR ticket. Learning to be comfortable in the plane take a lot of work; my instructor is almost yelling at me for not having my license yet, and I just did my long-cross country last weekend, and whenever I put a hood on and start doing IFR stuff, I become very exhausted quickly.
The workloads are very different and so it’s good to be very “ahead of the plane” (and, moreso, be *able* to have a large reserve of distance ahead of the plane to work with) when you’re doing IFR stuff, and that’s a skill you really only learn flying by youself. But, if you were to work at it, and get your license by the end of the summer, and kept flying on cross-countries around the area (which you can do here, late into the winter), it’d be prime time to start the book portions of the IFR stuff right when the weather gets really bad in the Bay, and that would likely help your IFR training, too.
I could ramble for hours, so feel free to ping me with any other questions.
Good luck on the house hunting!