Private Pilot License – Flight Test Preparation Costs
February 26, 2009
The flight test preparation of your training is the finish up part of your training where you will get prepared for the flight test. Now the one thing that you want to keep in mind is, if you have been going at a steady pace through your Private Pilot Training this phase will be just getting everything up to the practical test standards. If you have been starting and stopping, make sure you get some time in your schedule to get proficient.
If you have gotten all your cross countries done and waited two months, guess what, it is going to take more flights to get you up to speed. So you can see how having all of this planned out from the beginning can really benefit you.
You want to be proficient for the flight test, if you can continuously fly from the beginning, this is going to be much easier. This is why I am training students 4 times per week now. I remember one of my students last year came within $300 or so of my cost estimate. He was done in about 8 weeks since the thanksgiving holiday week was at the end of his training. This is pretty good and the student was VERY happy.If there had not been a holiday at the end of his training he would have been done in 6 1/2 weeks.
Here I add all of the left over solo time since most people end up getting it at the end for practice before the flight test. You are going to want to get out there by yourself before your flight test.
The requirement by the FAA is 3 Hours within 60 days of the flight test. I find that I am still doing about 4-6 hours with the students and 7-10 hours of ground instruction on average. If you are on track and have been studying hard, you can get done close to the hours I list below.
I use rates of $120 Per Hour for the airplane and $45 Per hour For the Instructor. I also use an examiner fee of $400.00.
Private Pilot License Flight Test Preparation Cost
3 Hours Dual Instruction @ $165 Per Hour
5 Hours Ground Instruction @ $45 Per hour ( Flight Instructor )
10 Hours of Solo Flight Time @ $120 Per Hour
Flight Test Examiner Fee
Flight test (airplane)
3 Hours Dual Instruction $825.00
5 Hours Ground Instruction $225.00
7.5 Hours of Solo Flight Time $900.00
Flight Test Examiner Fee $400.00
Flight Test (airplane) $180.00
Total # 4 $2,530.00
Now this is realistic if you have been training consistently. If you have started and stopped for some reason, make sure you can do the solo cross country phase and then jump right into the Private Pilot License Flight Test Preparation.
At the end of your training is where you will want to be 100% confident in your flying. If you don’t fee confident in one or more of the areas of opperation in the practical test standards, don’t go up for the flight test.
Hope to See You in the Sky
Airfreddy
Airfreddy
http://www.articlesbase.com/sports-and-fitness-articles/private-pilot-license-flight-test-preparation-costs-624710.html
Traveling by a Private Jet
February 26, 2009
Traveling by private jet is convenient, and seems quite glamorous to many people. Private jet charter is a privilege and a luxury few people ever know or experience. Given these perceptions, you may be surprised to know that private jets and charter flight had very humble and even uncertain beginnings.
You may also be surprised to learn that jet-powered aircraft actually predate charter flight itself. The first jet-propelled aircraft was built nearly one hundred years ago by a Romanian inventor, Henri Coanda. An odd-looking aircraft, it was a type of thermojet that used a compressor instead of a propeller, which exhausted hot gases along the side of the machine at great velocity that actually provided a reactive force, pushing the plane forward. During its first and only flight in December of 1910, Coanda noticed that the burning gases had a tendency to hug the sides of the aircraft known to this day as the Coanda Effect,which is why both commercial and private jet engines are mounted either at the rear of the plane, or far out on the wings.
Similar engines were developed during the 1930s and 40s. The first practical, true turbojet the Heinkel He 178 actually flew in 1939. Due to the conservatism of German Air Force authorities however and political maneuvering within the German military, this jet fighter was never to see service. The first operational jet aircraft to see action was the Messerschmitt Me 262, which first flew in combat in April, 1944, little over a year before Germany’s defeat. After World War II, this technology was quickly employed by the U.S. Army Air Corps (later the Air Force) and Britains Royal Air Force. The British were actually the first to make jet engine technology available to the civilian market: the De Havilland Comet became the first commercial jet airliner around 1950. After nearly sixty years, many of these are still in service as transport planes for the Royal Air Force.
Business aircraft had been around since the early 1930s, but it wasn’t until 1964 that the first small private jet was manufactured and offered to the general public. The Learjet 23 was actually based on a proposed fighter-jet design for the Swiss Air Force. The Swiss passed on the design, but William P. Lear saw its potential and with this aircraft, a new market for efficient, high-speed private jet charter was opened.
The Learjet 23 was followed by several more models, and competing companies entered the fray as well. Today, when you book your private jet charter, you’ll very likely be flying a Learjet 60, a Gulfstream IV or a Cessna Citation X, depending on your destination, needs and schedule.
Jonathan Blocker
http://www.articlesbase.com/travel-articles/traveling-by-a-private-jet-120315.html
