Blanche wrote:
I don't need fancy new equipment to learn the basics. When I started
music lessons, I did not rush out and buy a Buffet clarinet or a
Yamaha Super Action soprano saxaphone. It would have been a waste of
money. To learn fingering, breath support, technique, notation, etc.
the 'student model' is more cost-effective. Besides, I don't think
there's a student-model of a soprano sax. But now I have a collection
of higher-quality instruments because I have the chops to use them.

Same for an aircraft. I have a cherokee. Do I want a Lancair or Cirrus?
Sure, but it would be wasted on me right now. I don't have an instrument
rating and these aircraft are best suited to a kind of mission that
isn't in my bag of tricks. Perhaps in the future.

That's another good point. The Cessna Pilot Course uses a C172SP in
their videos. Our school had other aircraft that were far less expensive
to rent and just as capable of getting an applicant through the course,
but because the videos used C172SPs, some people chose that airplane so
they wouldn't have to interpolate the data used in the examples. And of
course, employees were encouraged to encourage use of the SPs.

The added expense for an SP over a C152 is about $40-45/hr; over an
older model C172, $15-20/hr. Multiply that by 50 or 60 hours flight
time, and that's enough, or almost enough, to buy yourself a nice Garmin
handheld! Not that all the bells and whistles in the C172SP aren't
really nice to have at your fingertips, but how many of those bells and
whistles do you *NEED* to learn how to fly? and how many hours and
dollars are you spending learning to use those bells and whistles during
the training? Sure is a nicer ride for the CFI, though! If a person
really likes the C172SP, transitioning can always be done after the
license when you are spending the money on instruction for that
airplane, not on learning how to fly.

(Not criticizing those who choose to do the training in the SP -- if
it's affordable, why not? Just saying that that's *ONE* of the reasons
why quotes from schools with these newer airplanes are so much more
than, for example, someone learning in a C152.)