In article aPTqf.669446$xm3.354931@attbi_s21,
Jay Honeck wrote:
Did you take 80 because of on-again/off-again training, or some other
factor? It seems like a lot, with a dedicated flight training schedule.
(It seems pretty quick, if you were doing the old "whenever I've got a few
extra bucks I'll take a lesson" method.)

There was actually no break in training. It was pretty continuous, and
I think I was pretty dedicated to it. From what I remember, there were
two factors.

- Lack of aptitude. Anything to do with book learning, I was fine. No
problems with flight planning or cross-country navigation. But the
actual stick-and-rudder stuff, I had problems with. I've always
had a problem with tasks that required coordination ... it always
took me longer to learn a physical skill than it did for anyone
else. Maybe part of it was my instructor was relatively inexperienced,
and the thing I had real problems with (landings) was something he
mastered very easily, so he couldn't really give me useful advice.
I read all of the books I could find and every newsgroup posting on the
subject and tried all of their tricks, but they didn't really help.
I flew with other instructors as well, but it didn't help. I think
it was 20 hours until I soloed. I also really liked flight simulators,
but they didn't help me one bit (nothing in real life felt like the
sim).

- We only have one DE for the area. My checkride got rescheduled a couple
of times (weather once, he got delayed once), and in the intervening
time I flew a lot to keep my skills up (and I still had a lousy
short-field landing, but the DE passed me anyway).

Hmm. I don't know what 172s are renting for, but I'm assuming somewhere
around $90 per hour? (For the not-so-new-ones.) More for the glass
cockpits.

How many hours did you fly with an instructor, and how many without? That
makes a HUGE difference in cost.

I think I had something like 20 hours of solo time by the time I got my
private (I didn't need much; the cross-country stuff was a breeze). I'd
have to check my logbook to me sure.

So, assuming $90/hr:

$115 * 60 = $6900
$90 * 20 = $1800
$8700 total.

But if I had zero hours with an instructor, it still would have cost me
$7200 ($90 * 80). Clearly the high number of hours and the 172 are what
drive the cost here.

I know everyone is going to say that 80 hours is too high, and maybe it
is. But I've seen a number of places that the national average is 75
hours (but to be fair, I've never seen the source of that statistic).
Assuming that number is accurate, that means for everybody that gets
their private in 55 hours, there's some duffer like me that's doing it
in 95 hours. Maybe most of those people are have other factors at
work, but that doesn't change the base cost.

I see that one guy recently got his Sport Pilot in a week. I doubt I
could have done that, but maybe a two-week camp would have worked for
me. Maybe there's hope for GA yet.

--Ken