It took me 143 hours and 15 months to become a certified pilot. Generally speaking, the average student pilot should be able to complete their training to certification within a year, and between 60 hours and 100 hours. This will heavily depend on the airplane you are flying and where you are in the country.
A year ago, I did a video analysis on all of my pilot training cost. That video can be seen here In the video I discussed in detail some of the pitfall I had to go through during my flight training and some of the mistakes I made as a student pilot. Certainly you can avoid a lot of these things so that your pilot training doesn’t take as long to complete.
Since I mentioned a lot of the cost to becoming a pilot, most of the cost were monetary, meaning out of pocket cost per dollar. But as a student pilot in training, there are some costs you probably should be aware of as well. for example, there’s a cost in your time. how much time you are willing to dedicate to your flight training will be extremely important. There is cost in terms of food. There is cost in your emotional state, because trust me, there will be some hard times during your pilot journey that will frustrate the crap out of you.
So in this video, I have my wife Catherine with me, who will share her side of the story on what it was like to be with someone who is training to become a pilot. See for a while, I didn’t realize that it wasn’t just me trying to get a pilots license. If you’re in a longterm relationship, chances are that your partner is also going through the training with you. And that comes at a cost. Here are some of the points discussed in the video.
Emotional cost – During your training to earn a pilot license, you are going to be emotionally involved. It almost unnatural not to have a passion for flying an airplane. You will eat drink sleep and talk about flying airplanes all day everyday. At least if you are as obsessive as me. And guess who will be there to listen? your partner. They will be the dumpster for your emotional victories and woes, so this will be something to consider.
Fear of Flying – This will be another factor during your pilot training. You as a student may be doing something to kill your fear of flying, but your partner is not. There is some fear that goes along with this, and chances are that your partner is living in some level of fear with your daredevil activity of flying an airplane. In my case, I was flying airplanes, and I was riding my motorcycle to flight school 90% of the time. In LA traffic you can imagine the fear my wife had of me being safe out there.
These are some of the things to consider when you’re thinking about becoming a pilot. Flying is great, it’s fun and it’s beyond any other experience you’ll have. This is why I encourage everyone who has ever dreamt about flying to start their pilot journey today. That said, I do want you all to be prepared for what’s to come during your pilot training
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