The Private Pilot Budget Planner

Price a private pilot certificate from your own quotes: three schools on one whole plan, the hours most students take rather than the 40-hour minimum, the briefing time no rate card shows, the medical first, your pace on the calendar, where your money runs out, and renting, a club or a share after the checkride.

A flight school's rate card prices one hour of one airplane. The regulation's 40 hours is a floor, and the FAA itself states that the average for the private pilot certificate is approximately 75 hours. Our free Flight Training Cost Calculator turns a rate card into the price of the whole certificate; this planner does the rest of the work around it: comparing schools, counting the hours you will really need, fitting them to a calendar, and knowing before lesson one how far your money reaches. In the worked example (example quotes, not typical prices), a 60-hour plan at $165 an hour for the aircraft and $70 for the instructor, with briefings, fees and kit, costs $16,940.00. Priced at the 40 hours a school may advertise it is $11,551.67; at the FAA's approximately 75 it is $20,981.25. A school with the lowest headline rate ($125, dry) turns out to have the highest aircraft hour once its fuel charge is added, and is still the cheapest plan because of its instructor rate. An $18,000 budget covers 63 hours, rounded down and checked; saving $96.17 a week closes the gap to 75. After the checkride, a club pays from 40 hours a year and a share from 58, rounded up. Every figure is computed by the code our calculator runs; regulations are quoted word for word from the eCFR (14 CFR 61.109, 61.39, 61.23 and Part 141) and the FAA. It is a money and calendar planner only: not a flight-planning, weight and balance, fuel, performance or go/no-go aid, and it holds no figure to plan a flight with. Your instructor, not a budget, decides when you are ready. Included: 7 steps, 4 printable working pages, reference tables and a quickstart, 24 pages in all, plus a personalised sheet worked on the quotes you enter in the calculator.

Look inside

Two full pages from the planner, exactly as printed. Click either to read it at full size before you decide.

What is in it

• Step 1: three school quotes priced on one whole plan of dual, solo and ground hours, a dry rate with its fuel charge
• Step 2: your plan at 40, 50, your hours, the FAA's approximately 75 and 90 hours, with 14 CFR 61.109(a) and the FAA quoted
• Step 3: briefing and ground time counted lesson by lesson at the instructor rate
• Step 4: the medical, knowledge test, examiner and kit, with the medical booked first (14 CFR 61.23 quoted)
• Step 5: your pace turned into weeks, lost lessons counted, and the dated rules for the knowledge test and checkride preparation
• Step 6: your budget's ceiling in hours, rounded down and checked, and the weekly saving to reach 75 hours
• Step 7: renting, a flying club or a share after the checkride, with break-even hours a year rounded up
• Working pages: a school quote sheet, a lesson and money log, a calendar of milestones, a rent, club or share sheet
• Reference tables: flying cost by hours and dual-hour rate, weeks to fly by pace, break-even hours by fixed cost
• A quickstart that closes the self-score loop, and a personalised sheet worked on your own quotes

The planner picks up where the free Flight Training Cost Calculatorleaves off. The calculator prices a private pilot certificate from your own quotes and reprices it at the 40-hour minimum in 14 CFR 61.109(a) and at the FAA's stated average of approximately 75 hours. The planner does the rest: three school quotes priced on one whole plan (a dry rate with its fuel charge), the hours most students take, briefing and ground time counted lesson by lesson, the fees with the medical booked first, your pace turned into weeks with the dated rules for the knowledge test and the checkride preparation, how far your budget reaches (rounded down), and renting, a club or a share after the checkride, with break-even hours rounded up. Every figure in it is an example; it promises no price and no pass, and your instructor, not a budget, decides when you are ready. It is a money and calendar planner only: not a flight-planning, weight and balance, fuel, performance or go/no-go aid, and it holds no figure to plan a flight with. Flights are planned with your instructor, the aircraft's POH/AFM, approved planning tools and the reserves your regulator requires.