Jay Honeck writes:

$352 per hour to rent a plane? What're you comparing this to,
renting a Caravan?

No, I'm just in Europe, where 250 euro per hour is not uncommon (and with the
current exchange rate, that's a lot more in dollars).

And where I live, you can get the Private *and* Instrument ratings for
around $10K.

Where I live, the private pilot costs between $21,000 and $28,000 to obtain,
and an instrument rating is another $28,000 or so. Some pilots actually find
it cheaper to go to the U.S. for their IR than to pass it here, although a
U.S. instrument rating has some restrictions on it in Europe (in particular,
you can only fly a plane IR if it has a U.S. registration).

I find it incredible that you have spent the equivalent of 4.3 MONTHS
sitting in front of Microsoft Flight Simulator this *year*??? I
can't decide whether that's awesome, sick, or both...

I was surprised, too. But 720 hours isn't 4.3 months, it's about 90 days
full-time. It represents essentially all my leisure time.