Sample Learn to Fly Info Sheet (Part 61)

by Isaac Prestwich, CFII

Several people have asked me what's needed in order to learn how to fly. The absolute most basic answer is money. This is my attempt to cover everything someone might need to know; including that most basic question: "How much?"

There are several facets to learning how to fly:

Time required, both in the air and on the ground
Money Required, at least a ballpark estimate
What is covered during the lessons
FAA requirements
Testing

All this is based on you getting your Private Pilot's License. This license will allow you to fly with passengers, day or night, and on trips as long as you'd like. It's also the first step towards any advanced pilot licenses that you may want (such as how to fly in the clouds).

There are two lesser licenses, a Recreational Pilot License and a Sport Pilot License. Both of these have various limitations, so the write-up below doesn't apply to either of them.

1. Time Required

The FAA requires a person to have a minimum of 40 hours of flying time in order to get his/her Private Pilot's License. While this is the official minimum, the national average is 60-80 hours total, and there are several reasons for the much higher actual average vs. the minimum.

The factors that can lead to greater than the minimum number of hours are:

a. Delays that cause a person to forget or get out of practice. Delays can be due to bad weather, lack of money, family or work commitments, illness, lack of training airplanes due to maintenance, or unavailable instructors (yes, it happens, sad to say).

b. Lack of study on the part of the student. Flying is fun, studying not so much. Far too many student pilots just fly, and ignore studying in general and the written test requirements until it's too late. Then they have to fly just to maintain proficiency while they take time to study for the test. These additional hours really add up!

c. Poor Instruction. Not all instructors are created equal, and some are just better at it than others. Being an instructor is often seen as a way to build flight time in order to go to the airlines, and many a junior flight instructor doesn't really want to teach, they want to build time and that's at your expense.

d. Poor hand-eye coordination, language barrier, or a physical handicap. All of these on part of a student will slow training and increase the total number of hours required.

2. Money Required

The largest cost in learning to fly is the airplane. For the airplane I fly at South Jersey Regional here are competitive rates and costs. Interestingly, many of the airfields in the area are more expensive!

First are the assumptions:

a. That you are "small" enough to fit into a Sport Cruiser — roughly shorter than 6 foot 6 inches and less than 220 pounds. A Sport Cruiser is $152.50/hour. If you don't fit in a Sport Cruiser, the next larger plane is a Cessna 172 and that's $205/hour.

b. That you self-study for the written exam. If you want to attend a ground school, there are several around that charge roughly $200 (or more) for a private pilot written test.

c. That you purchase a low-cost headset. These run between $100-$1,000. You do not need a headset to start your instruction, I (and most instructors) have a spare that you can use.

d. That you can complete your license in 40 hours of flying time (the FAA required minimum).

Table of Costs

| Item | Cost | |------|------| | Airplane Rental (Sport Cruiser: $152.50/hr × 40 hours) | $6,100 | | Flight Instruction ($65/hr × 30 hours) | $1,950 | | Ground Instruction ($65/hr × 15 hours) | $975 | | Medical exam | $150 | | Books, maps, required equipment | $400 | | Headset (costs $100 to $1,000) | $100 | | FAA Knowledge Exam fee | $200 | | Airplane rental for flight test ($152.50 × 2.5 hours) | $381.25 | | Flight Test exam fee (paid to the examiner) | $800 | | TOTAL | $11,056.25 |

Remember that this is the minimum! If you take longer to learn how to fly, buy a more expensive headset, extra books to study, etc., it will cost a bit more. On the other hand, none of this needs to be paid up front. This can (and should) be a pay-as-you-go learning experience.

3. What's Covered During the Lessons

Based on a total of 40 hours of flying time, and the fact that a typical lesson will last approximately 2 hours, there are 20 total lessons. Because some of these are required to be slightly longer cross country flights, you actually only have maybe 18 lessons total. Note: that means that each lesson is 5% of the total experience!

Your First Lesson

On your first lesson (with me) you will: help inspect the plane before flight, start the engine, make the before-taxi radio call, take off, fly out to the practice area, use all the airplane controls including flaps, make the returning-to-the-airport radio call, and (if you can) the landing! Plus taxi back to parking.

One note about the radio: I will write down what you need to say so you can simply read it off over the radio. I will answer them when they respond to your radio call.

My Philosophy: The more you do on a flight (rather than me doing it), the faster you'll learn. I can say "turn left," but how much to turn the wheel and how fast to turn it are a matter of feel. I will make sure we are safe while you learn the feel of the plane.

Pre-Solo Training

On the next few lessons, there is a list of maneuvers that the FAA requires you to know how to do before you solo (go up by yourself). Some of these are obvious: start, taxi, takeoff, use the radio, land. The others are:

Stalls
Steep turns (45 degree bank)
Slow flight
Turns around point on the ground
S-turns along a road
Short-field takeoffs and landings
Soft-field takeoffs and landings
No-flap landings
Slips
Go-arounds
Emergency landings

These take anywhere from 10-20 hours of flying time to learn.

Your First Solo

Once you've mastered these maneuvers to my satisfaction, I must administer a pre-solo written test (FAA requirement), you must have your medical certificate, and you should have purchased a headset. At that point you can go up by yourself!

You are required by the FAA to have a minimum of 10 hours of solo flight to get your license. Your first solo will be supervised: we'll fly from South Jersey Regional to Northeast Philadelphia Airport, practice slow flight and stalls on the way over, followed by a couple landings. Then I'll get out and you'll do three landings on your own.

Post-Solo Training

After you solo, you'll be able to fly without me, so that you can practice the maneuvers you've learned prior to soloing. When we fly together, we'll practice instrument, night, and cross-country flying.

The instrument flying is an emergency procedure in case you have to fly through a cloud. After we do one day and one night cross-country (a flight where you land over 50 miles from where we took off), you'll be required to do two cross-countries on your own: one 50 miles and one 75.

This will take you to almost 40 hours. Once you have completed all the mandatory FAA requirements, we will do practice checkride flights until I think you can pass the flight test. We will also meet a couple of times at a coffeehouse somewhere to practice for the oral exam.

Once we both feel that you are ready for the test, we'll schedule it at the soonest availability. On the day of the test, you'll fly to the test, take the test, and fly home — hopefully as a private pilot!

4. FAA Requirements

The FAA requires a minimum of 40 hours of flying time, broken down into these categories:

20 hours dual instruction (with me)
10 hours solo (all by yourself)
10 hours of either dual or solo flying time to get to 40 total (almost always dual)
5 hours solo cross-country
3 hours at night (must be dual)
3 hours of instrument flying (must be dual)
Pre-solo written test made up by the instructor
Third-class medical exam (which is also the student pilot license)
Knowledge (written) test with a minimum score of 70%
Oral exam with an FAA-designated examiner
Practical (flight) test with an FAA-designated examiner

5. Testing

There are four tests total, one of them made up and administered by me.

Test 1: Pre-Solo Written Test

The first one is your pre-solo test, made up by me, and is open book and open notes. We go over each question to make sure you absolutely know these. This test is what I consider critical for you to know before going up by yourself.

Test 2: Private Pilot Knowledge Exam

The second test you will encounter is the Private Pilot Knowledge Exam administered by computer at an FAA testing site (at South Jersey Field). There is a 1,200-question test bank, and you will be asked 60 of the 1,200 possible questions. They are all multiple choice, and there will be apps available that have all 1,200 possible questions, with the answers and an explanation of the answers.

The test has a time limit of 2 hours and you must be at least 15 to start. I don't give this test much weight since you get both the questions and answers given to you before the test, but it's all good information to know.

Test 3 & 4: Oral and Flight Exam (Checkride)

The third and fourth (oral and flight) tests are both given together by the FAA-designated examiner after you complete all the training. You must pass the oral test before you will be able to do the flight test.

Here's how that day will go:

11:00am - Takeoff about noon to fly to the FAA-designated examiner's airport to meet the examiner at 11:00am. After a few minutes of meet-and-greet to try to get you to relax, you'll go over your logbook and written test results to show that you're ready for the test. Then you'll go over the airplane's maintenance records to show him that the plane is legal to fly. This will take about a half-hour.

11:30am - 1:00pm - You will then sit in his office, across the desk from him, for about an hour and a half doing the oral exam.

1:00pm - 2:30pm - After passing that, hit the bathroom and go out to pre-flight the plane. He'll come out and get in (he doesn't ask any questions during the flight portion). You'll takeoff, start on a simulated cross-country flight, divert to another airport (you don't actually go anyplace, you just go through the procedures), then do instrument flying, followed by all the various maneuvers you've been taught.

Remember, we will have practiced this exact sequence of events several times before you ever get to do it with him. The flight takes about 1.5 hours.

2:30pm - 3:00pm - After the flight, you will again meet in his office to do the final paperwork. If you passed, you will get a temporary private pilot's license on the spot. If you failed, you only have to repeat the maneuvers that you did incorrectly. You won't have to repeat anything that you've already passed. A failure also requires that you fly with me for additional training, followed by a shortened re-test with the examiner. Then you will get your license!

The entire session with the examiner will be from 11:00am - 3:00pm. Afterwards, you'll fly back to South Jersey and be all done (pass or fail) by 3:30-4:00 that day.

Ready to Start Your Journey?

If you're ready to begin your flight training adventure, schedule a discovery flight or contact me directly at (208) 301-2629.

Let's get you in the air!

Complete Guide to Learning to Fly - Part 61