Cost of becoming a pilot
To answer your question accurately you would need to do an assessment of your goals and find a solution that fits your particular requirements. Flight training, like any other specialized skill, can be completed in many different settings, some of the variances include:
- Time to complete training from beginning to end
- Type of program enrolled in (CFR 61 vs CFR 141 curriculum)
- Type of aircrafts used for training (i.e. Cessna, Piper)
- Age of the fleet used for training
- Location of the flight school
- History and dependability of the Flight School
- Incentives and programs offered by flight school in addition to Flight Training
- Student's ability to learn
- Student's motivation level
- Student's self governance
- etc...
Those are some of the basics and I will try to expand on them, but there are other factors that will be less of impact yet important, or out of your control such as acts of god (fire) or acts of terrorism (Sept 11).
- Time to complete training from beginning to end
Many flight schools offer short yet intense programs that require high level of commitment by the student and an ever full time presence for completion of the training on time. This type of training would take roughly about 6 months to one year depending on the depth of ratings sought (PPL, IR, CPL, MEL, CFI, CFII, MEI). To shorten the training the student may opt not to enroll in a portion or all of the instructor ratings altogether and pursue other avenues for time building after training. This type of intense curriculum offers fast and effective completion and the cost saving opportunities are available in forms of less hours flown as result of recency of flight experience (no long gaps of time between flights) and shortened time of unemployment.
