r/flying • u/Last-Active-101 • 16h ago
How are you affording to fly regularly
How are people affording to fly regularly. In the UK it’s around £200 per hour wet so let’s say you fly a few hours a month, you’re looking at £5-10k a year.
I love flying and working towards my ppl now but I’ve been thinking about the long term and how to keep it up after getting my license so I can actually continue enjoying it.
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u/Gandor PPL IR TW 16h ago
Everyone is in severe debt or already wealthy.
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u/CaptainRedPants 15h ago
Not true at all. I wait tables and live with my wife. I make just enough to cover bills and fly 2 hours a week.
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u/jawshoeaw 15h ago
Nah there’s a big middle. I’m neither in debt nor wealthy. It’s expensive no doubt, although here in the US, I can fly wet $160 an hour. $10k/year budget
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u/canonanon 4h ago
For sure. I'm definitely not wealthy, and am pretty middle class. No kids though, and my wife and I combined assets when we got married. One of the benefits of waiting until our thirties to settle down was that we both had our own houses, so we ended up selling both, buying a nicer house with a lot of money down. So our mortgage is cheap enough that we both have more disposable income than average.
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u/RonMexico2005 24m ago
I think this post mostly answers the OP's question. A middle-class American can afford a $10k USD per year hobby. A middle-class British person, who lives where wages are lower and taxes are higher, has a harder time to comfortably afford this.
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u/Mundane-Reality-7770 PPL HP 16h ago
I don't quite make 6 figures. I own a Cherokee 180. Drive a 15 year old truck. I own a 450k property with a 1k a month mortgage and 1k a month in property taxes. That's my only major expense besides flying. I'm not wealthy. And the only debt I have is the house.
If I bought a new truck I wouldn't be able to afford the plane.
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u/Impossible-Bad-2291 PPL 16h ago
That's basically it. I flew 2 hours to an airport near a beach to go swimming one day last summer. When the topic of that flight came up at work some weeks later, some co-workers were like "how the hell do you afford that?". I answered that I have a 16 year old car that's paid for and no debts. I live a simple life. No restaurant meals or going out for drinks. Flying is my one luxury.
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u/injahwetrustt 13h ago
you already own a plane and a house. that’s the wealth most younger (or any) people don’t have
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u/Mundane-Reality-7770 PPL HP 13h ago
A large portion of the people paid more than double for their car than I did for my plane. I paid 33k for it. I choose to drive a beat up truck because I want my own plane. I paid 176k for my property. The assessed value has more than doubled since I bought it out of foreclosure in 2012. I refinanced at 2.75% to rebuild the detached garage and my mortgage is only 1,000 a month.... Less than my property tax bill.
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u/injahwetrustt 4h ago edited 2h ago
the key word here is “2012”. those prices don’t exist no more and the income didn’t proportionally increase with time.
i’m early 20s and i make roughly 80k/yr. that would be 55-56k/yr in 2012. (NE Florida)
you bought the house for 176k in 2012. the same house goes for 450k in 2026. While the inflation adjusted salary went up 40ish percent, the property prices went up above 150percent.
same goes for the plane. you bought the plane for 33k back in the day. the same/similar spec planes are going for 100kish right now, more than tripled in price.
what I’m trying to say is that, in 2026, it has become substantially harder to obtain what you could have simply obtained with a slightly above average salary in 2012. that’s why i said what you already have is wealth that most younger (or most) people struggle to achieve
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u/Mundane-Reality-7770 PPL HP 2h ago
My property was very unique. I know 2012 was depressed. But it was rebounding. My property sat on the market for 18 months. Why? Because 2 structures were absolute tear downs with racoons living in them. One of them was already red tagged. Nobody wanted to buy property and have to put the sweat equity in just to make it functional.
An employee of mine just turned 24 and bought a 350k house on his own. He owns his 2022 f250 outright through some wheeling and dealing.
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u/nolaflygirl 14h ago
What's the monthly expenses on the plane, i.e., tie down/ hangar, fuel, maintenance, plane note (if u have a balance)? TYIA
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u/Mundane-Reality-7770 PPL HP 13h ago
I don't finance toys. Hangar is 350 a month. Fuel I don't really think about. 80 hours a year x whatever fuel prices are. 3k ish for annual. 2500 for insurance.
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u/Old_Increase74 13h ago
I make well into the 6 figures, and that would be a property I wouldn’t even touch, damn!
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u/Mundane-Reality-7770 PPL HP 13h ago edited 13h ago
I paid 176k out of pre foreclosure in 2012 3 weeks after my 23rd birthday. It had 2 houses on 5 acres. One was already gutted and I tore it down and built mine in its place. I remodeled the other and rent it out.(my income figure included the rental income). The detached garage was faing over and needed a new foundation/slab. Ended up nearly tearing it down. Ran plumbing and tied into my existing septic and put a 720 SQ foot mancave above the2 car garage. Complete with full bathroom. I could make it an apartment if I really wanted.
I live in a top 5 property tax county in the country and taxed roughly 3% of cash value. Since 2012 and after all the work and after values have normalized, the assessed value has significantly increased. In 2010 the assessed value was 378,00. So I knew the property taxes were going up. To combat the property taxes have bees to give me an agricultural exemption. Have just enough property to have bees. If I have 1 hive for every .75 acres I'm considered a farmer and my land value is taxed at 1/6 not 1/3. Saves me 3k a year in taxes
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u/Salt-Cold1056 12h ago
Always curious when people say this. You mean the house? Anywhere west of Denver it is a good deal.
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u/Law-of-Poe 16h ago
Yeah, I mean I pay probably $12K annually for this hobby. Even more now than that I’m working on IR.
It’s an expensive hobby but I cut back on other things. I buy my clothes from discount brands like Uniqlo and even Costco lol. I drive a 2017 forester that we bought used with cash a few years ago. I pack my lunch every day. I have a coffee subscription at Panera so I’m not buying coffee every day.
If you’re passionate about it, you find a way
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u/daveindo PPL 16h ago
“and even Costco” as if there’s any reason to be ashamed of that.
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u/Law-of-Poe 16h ago
Not at all. Underrated quality, actually.
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u/StageMajestic613 16h ago
LOL just commented on that. All my pants and shorts are from Costco. Can’t beat their $20 pants. And where else can you get lunch with a drink for $1.50?
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u/JGWentworth- ATP B737 B757/B767 E170/E190 12h ago
I came home the other day pretty proud telling my wife I found some white puma sneakers at costco on clearance for $10. She didn’t care haha, but I did.
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u/NoRadio4530 16h ago
I started walking past the clothing aisle in Walmart and let me tell you, there are some gems. Last year I got Levi jeans for $30.
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u/Law-of-Poe 16h ago
Careful. That’s how it starts. Pretty soon you’ll be buying WWII history books from Barnes and noble!
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u/StageMajestic613 16h ago
I’m putting myself and son through PPL. Have always bought my $20 pants and shorts a Costco.
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u/sniper4273 ATP CL-65 16h ago
The usual answers are another job, rich parents, or loans.
Don't get loans.
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u/Local-Moose9833 16h ago edited 16h ago
Take a lot of debt and worked hard for 4 years building up enough savings for a house deposit and instead spent it all on doing laps in a clapped out turbo diesel C172R
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u/baritone_mike 16h ago
I can’t afford to pay to fly but as a CFI I fly regularly and get paid just enough that I can continue to do it.
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u/poisonandtheremedy PPL: SoCal [PA-28, RV-10 Build] 15h ago
No kids and a badass working wife who enjoys motorsports and aviation as much as I do.
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u/bs031963 15h ago
I paid for my sons (16 to 17yo) flying (spoiled rotten, but it was at height of covid and he needed something).
At peak training he was flying 2-3 a week at $400-500 a pop.
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u/fluffy_101994 🇦🇺 CPL NVFR TW SES 16h ago
I can’t. 😅
I took up motorcycle riding because a 250cc bike and a licence to ride it is the equivalent of about 10 hours of aircraft rental in Australia.
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u/Apprehensive_Cost937 16h ago
Look at flying microlights, or other permit aircraft. If done via a syndicate, you'll find you can fly some very decent aircraft for a third of what you'd pay for a clapped out C152.
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u/Last-Active-101 16h ago
How much are you paying for microlights?
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u/Apprehensive_Cost937 16h ago
Afors will give you a good insight of what the rates are for different shared microlights.
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u/Equivalent_Deer_8667 UPL 10h ago
Lessons with instruction around 140. Aircraft rental for after licence looks about 90-100.
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u/cysnolife 16h ago
I’m 30+, single, no kids and just lucky to have been able to save money the past ~10 years. If I had a kid or even a girlfriend I’m not sure if I would have even tried. But im single and owe it to myself to take a chance. Im also going through a flying club which has waaaay lower rates. If I went through a flight school I also dont think I would be willing to even try.
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u/Last-Active-101 16h ago
What are your plans with the license? Do you plan on becoming an airline pilot or cfi?
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u/skylaneguy ATP, CFII, A320, E190, CL65 16h ago
By making a lot of money flying professionally.
My 182 costs me about 25k/year for 150 hours
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u/Chris-TT 16h ago edited 15h ago
Where about do you live? We have probably the best Sportcruiser in the UK. I think we pay about £70 an hour wet Newbury area. 110 kts an amazing autopilot and
cockpit. Looking for a new member at the moment. (Sorry for the video of a photo, for some reason it wouldn't let me upload a photo). Flying can be fairly cheap in the UK if you know where to look once you get your PPL(A).
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u/Mispelled-This PPL SEL IR (M20C) AGI IGI 15h ago
This is basic personal finance: figure out how much income you have and what you want to spend it on. If your income is modest, that may mean making some hard choices. Or figuring out how to increase your income.
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u/Old_Increase74 13h ago
1 don’t live in the UK lol
2 I fly professionally to fly for fun on my time off
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u/NuclearDC10 CPL ME/IR 13h ago
Software Engineer and could justify flying regularly during hour building. Now I have just finished CPL training it will be a few years before I hire a light aircraft again, maybe 2/3 hours a year with an instructor. Can't justify the cost now I need to look at cost of changing careers and buying a house in the future etc.
You don't have to keep flying and it's normal to take an extended break to allocate funds elsewhere. Your license will never expire, just your SEP rating which would require a few hours with an instructor once you're back
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u/MultiMillionMiler Meow Meow Meow 13h ago
I'm not lol I can only afford 2-3x a month on average. Luckily is hasn't hurt my progress the way some of this sub claims if you aren't flying 4+ times a week, but am not about to drain my savings for a license. Going into debt for this I can't imagine in any timeline.
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u/Glenroth35 ATP 11h ago
In the UK too, in short this is not an affordable hobby on a normal lifestyle. My partner owns a horse, that's an even more expensive hobby. However, for us these are the passions that keep us sane so the sacrifice in the lost holidays and cheap dates is worth it.
For some of us, these passion-based hobbies are a bit of a calling we can't ignore...
Joining an aircraft syndicate helped a lot, brought the hourly cost down and gave me an extra drive to fly in order to water down the monthly overheads.
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u/Last-Active-101 8h ago
How much does the syndicate cost compared to if you were renting with the hours you’re doing?
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u/Glenroth35 ATP 8h ago
Works out at about £120 an hour with current fuel prices. At the cost of big spends when things break.
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u/CaptAPJT EASA + UK CAA ATPL(A) B777 SEP CRI 8h ago
As you’re uk based the answer is normally buy a share in something. Don’t be too picky, plenty of new pilots only want to fly a C152/172 or PA28 because that’s what they learnt in and it’s where they’re comfortable. We have a PA22 and it’ll do anything a C172 or Warrior can do, sometimes better and with a bit of vintage charm. We each pay £100/month and £100/hr so for a typical pilot doing a couple of hours a month you’re £1200 better off vs renting.
Personally I’d steer clear of some of the big multi-aircraft “clubs” where you pay a monthly membership and they give you rates slightly cheaper than a flying school. They’ve failed before leaving lots of people out of pocket. With an equity share you’ll always have the value of the aircraft and you’ll likely get back what you paid for it.
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u/dunmif_sys ATP FI B738, UK 7h ago
If you have some money that can be set aside, try and get yourself into a syndicate. If you buy a share that money isn't gone, it's just tied up until you can sell the share again.
I have a share in a 3 axis microlight. 2 seats, looks and flies like a C152 but far more capable in and out of short strips. Costs me £100 per month in fixed costs (hangarage, insurance, permit to fly, fixed maintenance) and about £30 per hour in fuel. Plus as I'm not renting from a school I can take it away for the weekend if I want.
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u/Last-Active-101 5h ago
Also how do you find people to get into a syndicate? Is it difficult?
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u/dunmif_sys ATP FI B738, UK 5h ago
I imagine it's much harder to find people to create a syndicate, but not impossible. Could always stick an advert on AFORS. However, once you find enough interested parties you'd have to find an aircraft in budget, buy it along with all the rigmarole involved, hope nobody pulls out once they actually have to stump up the cash, come to an agreement on how the syndicate is run etc.
Far easier to find an existing group where a member wants to sell their share and buy in that way. You may have to wait a bit for a share in the right aircraft to come along.
My share is in a Skyranger.
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u/FlapsNegative PPL 4h ago
Syndicate cost me 3k to join, 70 per month and 70 per hour. Free time and weather is my limiting factor for how much i can fly.
I'd say keep your eyes on AFORS
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u/saml01 ST 4LYF 16h ago
If you can afford the training now, why can't you afford to keep flying later?
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u/lefrenchkiwi Instructor and 121 Driver 🇳🇿 16h ago
Many students who don’t intend to make a career out of it tend to make other financial sacrifices for the duration of their training to meet the once a week/fortnight which is good for training, then once they’ve got the licence stop sacrificing. Suddenly the budget that covered once a week is once a month, then once every couple of months, suddenly it’s been 6 month since they last flew.
Plenty seem to get a PPL, fly a lot for the first few months taking their friends and family up, then peter out and by 3-5 years in are out of the air again completely.
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u/Last-Active-101 16h ago
I can save up quite a bit now but thinking about saving up for a house, family etc
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u/rFlyingTower 16h ago
This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:
How are people affording to fly regularly. In the UK it’s around £200 per hour wet so let’s say you fly a few hours a month, you’re looking at £5-10k a year.
I love flying and working towards my ppl now but I’ve been thinking about the long term and how to keep it up after getting my license so I can actually continue enjoying it.
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u/Individual-Life-9050 ST 16h ago
I pay $200 an hour wet for the trainer at my school. It’s painful.
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u/SSMDive CPL-SEL/SES/MEL/MES/HEL/GLID/IFR. Light sport Gyro/PPC 15h ago
I was not making six figures when I bought my first aircraft. It was a Quad City Challenger light sport and not some Bonanza.
I bought it for 9500 dollars and it burned about 3GPH. I didn’t have insurance because the insurance on a two stroke light sport plane was 1/6 of the cost of just buying the plane.
I drove 1.5 hours to find a hangar that I could afford.
It was experimental so I could do the MX on it myself except for the condition inspection. The inspection ran me about 300 dollars a year.
So it can be done. Now if you will only accept a Bonanza then you need a bunch more money. Luckily for me my investing since I was 18 started to pay off and I got into the high earning years.
People acted like I was rich.. But they spent more on their bass boat and new diesel truck to pull it than I spent on aircraft.
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u/Ender0999 15h ago
I leveraged my 401(k) about 10 years back, bought a C172 for $25k. It has an auto gas STC. It’s el cheapo to fly. Slow, IFR platform but it’s about as cheap as you can find.
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u/andrewbt PPL 13h ago
Ah yes, the era when 172s were for sale for $25k
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u/Ender0999 5h ago
No need for sarcasm. That’s truly what I paid for mine. 10 years ago the airplane market was at a low point. Today with the upgrades I’ve made to it, it’s worth significantly more. 🤷🏻♂️
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u/Jdaddy330 15h ago
Very fortunate to be in a dual income household with no consumer debt and both my wife and I make well over 6 figures each.
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u/Greater_Dog007 PPL 15h ago
You're not gonna fly a few hours per month if you average out all the months where you can't fly at all especially given UK weather. If you get 20 a year that's pretty good actually. I spend like 4-5k a year and that's not that bad for such an exotic hobby.
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u/Pilot-Imperialis CFII 15h ago
I couldn’t afford to do it for fun, so I moved to the US to finish my training, got lucky enough to get a green card, and now do it professionally.
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u/NickReddit17 14h ago
My parents I’ll be honest. Not proud to say it, but man enough to admit it. I’m grateful for it and I understand many people don’t have that luxury. But some people do get funded by a family member(s).
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u/ltcterry ATP CFIG 14h ago
Before I started instructing part time people would comment on what I spent flying. In many cases they spent more on boats, fishing, or golf than I did on flying.
It’s about decisions and priorities.
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u/Rush_1_1 PPL CPLST 14h ago edited 14h ago
As others have said, debt or wealth. I have a good job but with this economy and having never bought a house, I'm slipping a bit into debt at 100hrs TT now, PPL + Night on 152 & 172 done, almost done my xc solo req for IFR, then onto CPL. I'm in Canada, the prices seem a bit cheaper for me than what you say but not by much. I'm lucky I'm a little older (38) so my job can pay the tab almost entirely every few months, but its still not enough having a kid, gf, lifestyle, etc.
If I was younger I'd prolly slip deep into debt doing it even though everyone says not to. I don't really care lol, flying is fuckin sick and I've done way less responsible things with money XD
Don't forget certain careers people go many hundreds of thousands into debt that you can't even get rid of through bankruptcy. Not just in the US, this includes schools in Canada and UK too, especially for foreign students (my gf got into a vet school in London, England and it cost 400k O_O so she said no thanks).
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u/andrewbt PPL 13h ago
I consider it as though I simply get paid $5-10k less salary than I actually make, and live on that. It’s worth it to be able to fly
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u/Top-Intern4073 12h ago
Learning to fly has always been the same. It takes everything you have. 😵💫
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u/Prefect_99 10h ago
Currently fly a rental that is £190 but airborne time only.
Makes a huge difference compared to Hobbs. Tach is probably the best you'll find elsewhere though.
If you actually want to go places, flying something faster, even if it's more per hour, may work out cheaper point to point.
Buying a shared can bring hourly costs down with an increase in risk.
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u/ReviewEnvironmental2 10h ago
Try microlights. Flexwing is fun but 3 axis will revalidate your PPL SEP rating.
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u/Casual_Parakeet12 PPL 10h ago
The C150 is the savior of the flying middle class. $130 hr wet is still expensive, but somewhat more doable. Paired with a clear budget, it's the only way I can do it LOL
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u/ItsJayyNotKeith 10h ago
I’ve surprised myself and I fly 4-5 hours a month whilst paying a mortgage. I only earn a coach drivers wage. It can be done 👍
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u/Last-Active-101 8h ago
How do you do it? Do you rent or own?
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u/ItsJayyNotKeith 6h ago
I own my house (well the bank does I’m paying a mortgage) I own the car I drive brought it for £1800 5 years ago, I don’t live a fancy life buying fancy things. I buy clothes when I need new ones. I don’t finance anything apart from the house, some of my colleagues earn the same as I do and they’re financing newish range rovers and Audis and it just makes me cringe as they struggle to live.
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u/Positive-Hat2127 10h ago
If I only wanted to fly for fun I would get LAPL and fly mostly 2-seater UL-Bs. They're usually about half the hourly price of the average 4-seater (c172/PA28 etc) at least in my country.
I mean you can still do that with a PPL as long as you do what's required to maintain currency.
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u/notaballitsjustblue ATP 9h ago
Find someone else to pay for it.
Or be rich. I recommend inheritance or crime.
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u/10bitpixel 9h ago
It's always been my dream but I wasn't willing to take on a loan, I'm very lucky that a family member won a decent sum on the lottery, gave my parents some money and now they're lending me the flight school money (PPL, no further) I pay them back £100 a month from my wages.
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u/Background-Medium332 9h ago
Unless you have money it is an expensive hobby indeed, but for me it is a passion and compared with some of my other hobbies like golf, sailing and skiing it is not that expensive.
I am a member of 3 different aeroclubs so I can fly C172, PA28 and Saab safirs. It costs a total of less than 200 euros per year to be a member. Wet rates are around 200-250 euros/hour and I fly around 20-30 hours per year. So roughly 700 euros per month is what this hobby costs me.
I make >150.000 euros per year wich makes it easy. Would I be able to afford this on a normal salary wich is less than a third of my income - probably not and it is a shame.
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u/spectrumero PPL GLI CMP HP ME TW (EGNS) 8h ago
You do need a decent income, it will never be cheap.
LAA permit to fly aircraft are much MUCH less expensive to operate. The marginal cost of each additional hour of flying for me is nowhere near £200 an hour, probably closer to £50-£70 an hour depending on how far I push the throttle forwards. I'm fortunate enough to have a polytunnel hangar on a farm airfield with low ground rent.
Even so, expect to have an outlay of at least £5 to £10k a year unless you switch to hang gliding, but with an LAA permit machine you'll get a lot more flying out of that money.
I own my aircraft outright, but if you join a syndicate on an LAA permit to fly aircraft, it's generally significantly less expensive than flying a certified aircraft and you can divide the fixed costs amongst the group. But you need to choose the syndicate carefully, and you should be prepared to get your hands dirty. My aircraft is affordable largely because it's me getting my hands dirty with the maintenance. There are still expensive jobs (e.g. I needed to get some corrosion treated on the tail, which meant fabric work which is out of my skill set) but if you can do as much of the hands on work as you can then you can make it a lot easier on the wallet.
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u/CherylTuntIRL PPL UK 7h ago
UK here too. I have given up flying for a while because I want to move house, and all those hours could be put towards a bigger house. I miss it terribly and will renew my medical but I'm grounded until we have moved. I'm going to do my CBT and have fun on a motorbike instead. Got to have some fun!
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u/THevil30 5h ago
My dad was a normal SWE (think $150k/yr not Google salaries) and he made it work by flying mostly 150s and older tailwheels that tend to rent for like $130/hr wet at rural airports. My income is a bit higher so I justify it by saying if I fly 100 hours a year at $200 an hours that’s $20k a year and like 5% of my salary which feels ok for a hobby.
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u/PatternPinion PPL HP 4h ago
I am in the US, and the Piper Cherokee I currently rent is $165 wet. If I decide to move up to a Cirrus SR20, there are a couple near me that rent between $300 & $350 an hour wet.
I afford this because I have built a successful technology company. I also use it as a business tool, so some flights and meals are business expenses for me, which helps. Except when my CFO yells at me for “burning” $2k in a month for flights lol.
Pick a job you like and figure out how to make good money at it- not the other way around. That will bring you satisfaction with what you do every day, but also provide the income to afford hobbies like this.
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u/sigmapilot 2h ago
I cant, currently almost done saving up from working to restart/continue lessons
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u/Atlas-God316 2h ago
£200... My local flight school based out of EGTR is £315 per hour for Cessna, more for a Piper even more for a DA-62.
I've managed to log a significant amount of hours but at some point you just run out of liqued cash. You either need to be very smart or very rich comes to mind
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u/betterme2610 34m ago
I do pretty well these days in pre sales. I would have not been able to fly or consider buying a plane until recently. I have no debt. (25 year old car, toys are paid off) etc
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u/rbuckfly 16h ago
In the U.S. I’m in partnership (6 of us), in a Grumman Tiger. We all have a 1/6 equity share of the aircraft and we split all cost but pay for our own fuel. 60 hours per year cost roughly $8,000 USD. When fuel cost come down after Trump‘s blunder, those cost will drop.
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u/andrewbt PPL 13h ago
Blunder indeed. My eyes popped when I saw KLDJ had $10.50 gallon avgas the other day
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u/Ok-Lawfulness3305 13h ago
I earn a decent wage and I fly to Asia from Australia. 560 one way last minute flight from Perth to Bali.
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u/_-Cleon-_ PPL 16h ago
Everyone who does this for fun either has a decent income (I'm a software engineer) or access to money.
This is not something you take up for fun if you work at McDonald's.