Flying for free??

jasc15

jasc15

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How does someone without a commercial license gain many hours without spending their entire salary on flying? Do you just look for volunteer opportunities? I cant see myself flying more than an hour or so each month once i earn my PPL, which won't improve my piloting skills much. How do those with PPLs deal with this? This is more than just a question of affording plane rental, it's about finding other opportunities to fly.
 
Networking.
Once you have PPL, offer to be Safety Pilot for instrument rated pilot who need practice. You can log fairly useless SIC time :smilewinkgrin: while they've got a view limiting device on. There is some responsibility there, though.

Split costs. You fly/pay for a leg out somewhere. The other person foots the bill for the trip back. While you're not logging *their* stick time, it's still exposure to the flying environment, which will help keep your head in the game.

Join a flying club. Rates are typically cheaper than renting. Also provides opportunities for above mentioned networking.
 
crash7 said:
Networking.
Once you have PPL, offer to be Safety Pilot for instrument rated pilot who need practice. You can log fairly useless SIC time :smilewinkgrin: while they've got a view limiting device on. There is some responsibility there, though.
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Actually, if both pilots agree beforehand that the Safety Pilot is PIC, both pilots can log PIC time while the other pilot is under the hood.
 
jasc15 said:
How does someone without a commercial license gain many hours without spending their entire salary on flying? Do you just look for volunteer opportunities? I cant see myself flying more than an hour or so each month once i earn my PPL, which won't improve my piloting skills much. How do those with PPLs deal with this? This is more than just a question of affording plane rental, it's about finding other opportunities to fly.
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Buy a basic, low power, homebuilt (e.g. Flybaby) - $10K or so - you spend that much for a used car. Burns less than a handfull of gallons of auto fuel per hour.

Fly all you want without breaking the bank. You don't need an excuse to fly.

Join a glider club - you might be amazed at how low the hourly rates are at some clubs. The down side is availability of gliders / tows. Expect to spend a lot of time at the airport helping out - not just flying. Learn a lot.

Make friends at the airport and ride along. You likely can get some stick time as well. Help with the expenses.
 
You pretty much have to pay your way through the Commercial/CFI, at which point you may be able to start getting paid to fly some. There are ways to make this cheaper, and Geoff listed some good ones. I like the FlyBaby option. It's not fast, but if you're trying to build hours then who cares about speed, right?

Networking is especially good. When you make friends with other pilots, it can be amazing what sorts of opportunities that opens up for you. I've gotten to fly in some cool airplanes just from having been in at the right place at the right time. Safey piloting is also not to be discredited as a worthwhile endeavor, especially if you wish to get your instrument rating.

Another option that you have is to arrange flying trips with non-pilot friends. Block Island, for example, is a wonderful destination and makes a great day trip. Get two other people with you (I have done four people in a Piper Archer, but make sure to check your W&B for that) and the costs come down significantly. Plus, you get all the flying time, and it really is more fun with others. There's another pilot group that I'm part of that has lots of fun weekend destination trips in the northeast, and might be worth joining if you want ideas and people to ride share with. Last weekend, for example, we flew up to Laconia, NH and spent the day on the lake on a boat. Great fun!

If you really love to fly and your goal is to one day get paid for it, as you're building hours save up the money for getting your instrument rating, then your commercial and CFI.

As far as that concept of flying for "free", this activity is a money-losing proposition for most people.
 
All the other suggestions are good ways to 'stay in the game' but the bottom line is this. Your going to need to commit more resources to flying then 1 hour per month. You can look for cheaper planes to fly like a light sport or a experimental but you need to plan on more flight time then 1 hour per month in order to keep and grow your skills. This is especially important when you have a small amount of time, you will find that your skill atrophy quickly when you have not done it for a long time. This is not a particularity good posting but I think you need to look at this with your eyes wide open.
 
I knew a guy who was an A&P who rebuilt a 150. He rarely flew it, so he'd let me and a few others use it, just had to pay for gas. Then I'd fly with one of my friends who was building time too. He'd fly one leg, I'd fly the other. Of course I couldn't log when he was flying, but it was exposure and I learned from watching him too. I also had a CFI friend who was trying to build time. We'd split the costs, and since he was a CFI, he could log the time too.

To help build time, I did my instrument rating, got my complex endorsement. I also financed part of my flight training. Otherwise I knew it was going to take forever.

I also worked line service at an airport part-time. That helped me to meet tons of pilots, and thus, met people to fly with.
 
Well, i didnt exactly mean "free", but getting more hours/dollar is what I'm interested in. One of my old college professors is a pilot (retired Air Force) and is still active. I flew a few times with him as a passenger, long before i decided to go for my PPL. I'm thinking of giving him a call and possibly getting a few trips with him. Even though i wouldn't be able to log any hours, im sure i would learn something from him and meet other pilots.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Join a glider club - you might be amazed at how low the hourly rates are at some clubs. The down side is availability of gliders / tows. Expect to spend a lot of time at the airport helping out - not just flying. Learn a lot.
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Fly as a tow pilot for that glider club... most clubs have volunteer, unpaid, tow pilots.

Our insurance requirements are, Private Pilot, 200hrs total time, 100hr in Airplane, Tail Wheel endorsement (current, recent and at least 10hrs) and High Performance endorsement.
 
All of the ideas listed above are good. Powered rental prices are high near me so I have been building lots of time in our glider club. While you are getting the add on rating you will spend some money and probably have alot of short flights but once you really start to soar you will be rewarded with a fair amount of flight time for the dollar. In the past two months I have been able to get 11.3 hours for $240 in tows.
 
Hang on. Not all towplanes are taildraggers, so don't count out towing gliders in a Cessna 182A, or my Cessna 150 with 180 HP engine & climb prop. Both tow quite well at my high elevation (5,000' msl) at Marfa in west Texas.

As a Commercial Soaring Operation, I find more towpilots by NOT having a taildragger towplane, and with the tricycle gear on mine, we can tow in winds that a taildragger pilot might not want to deal with.

I grew up with lovely old J-3 Cubs in Florida, but since I'm now the CFIG / DPE back in the glider, I don't mind being towed by my Cessnas. Towhooks were factory options, so they are easy to install on tricycle gear Cessnas, by the way.

There is one easy-to-read book on being the towpilot called "The Towpilot Manual", available from SSA merchandise at www.ssa.org or at www.bobwander.com

The booklet is $12 bucks and has most everything you need to know about flying the towplane, including the risks, and FAR 61.69 which shows the FAA training requirements (for your towing endorsement) and the 12 month tow currency requirements. Don't forget the re-currency part.

So, 4 tows = one hour of flyin' time to log. Find the nearest glider club or Commercial Soaring site to you at www.ssa.org Click on the "Where To Fly" map.

Glider Towing is challenging, fun and good stick 'n rudder flyin'.

Burt
Marfa Gliders, west Texas
www.flygliders.com
 
Somehow it's almost impossible to have flying and free in the same sentence. Just an idea, if you can do it, this is a great time to look for an aircraft to buy that can be used as a trainer in your flight school which you can then set up as a leaseback to that program. IF you do it right and have ample advice from your trusted advisors, then it may work for you.

I took a long and hard look into this, and crazy as it may be, since I am going to do my IR, and wanted to fly the same plane rather than switch off planes, I looked for and did buy a 1979 C172 which is fully IFR equipped. Not just for training considerations, but the use of the plane to actually GO someplace, is so much greater than if I was renting a plane outside of my training hours. I was once quoted over $1000.00 to rent a 172 for an overnight weekend trip out on Saturday and back on Sunday, not including fuel and any landing fees, etc.

The initial outlay for the plane is an expense (for sure!!) but 2 things happen. First, the expenses for the plane, if you set it up in a LLC, all go against the LLC which has tax and writeoff implications for MX and insurance. Second, set it up with the school that the plane pays you (or your LLC) back for each flight hour in the school and your hours in the plane while training cost you only the instructor's fees since it your personal plane.

Yes, the tach hours will pile up rather quickly, but from what I have seen and been told, our GA aircraft do much better being flown regularly, rather than a few hours each year. You can also expect the MX, 100 hour checks, etc. to be top notch since the plane is in a commercial program. IF you beak even over the time that the plane is leased back, well then you almost fly for 'FREE' (sorta!). But, the ability to fly your aircraft when you want is really cool and its hard to put a dollar value to that. I find that the staff at the school treat it with alot of TLC not that they mistreat the schools planes. Also, since its an IFR trainer, it doesn't prang all over the field as much as the 152's do since most of the students are in IR training and have their PPL's.

Just a thought.
 
Most volunteer flying (like Angel Flight, CAP, CG Auxiliary) have hours requirements as well as certificate requirements like IFR. Some do reimburse for direct costs or maintenance costs or both. In the case of CAP, they use their own aircraft. Depending on the CAP squadron, you could get a lot of flight time or ZIP.
To stay current, plan of a couple of hours a month. Most FBOs want renters to get minimum hours IN THEIR aircraft to continue using them or get rechecked with one of their instructors. One local FBO changed their rules from 90 to 60 to 45 days over the last 5 years.
To enhance your hours in the plane, try not flying dissimilar aircraft for the first 30 or 40 hours. As with cars, every aircraft is equiped differently. Rather than have to learn the nuances of the different equipment, you can spend more time enjoying the flying.
 
akite said:
All of the ideas listed above are good. Powered rental prices are high near me so I have been building lots of time in our glider club. While you are getting the add on rating you will spend some money and probably have alot of short flights but once you really start to soar you will be rewarded with a fair amount of flight time for the dollar. In the past two months I have been able to get 11.3 hours for $240 in tows.
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I am at 16 hours and $260 for tows.

Since I am not flying a reginal contest at Ephrata this year I probably won't do a lot more hours until our soaring Safari in August. Then I should put in about another 40 or 50 hours.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
brcase said:
I am at 16 hours and $260 for tows.


Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
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Do you own your Glider or do you rent? Not knowing much about gliders, what is the cost to purchase and maintain one? 16 hours at a cost of $260 is $16.25 per flight our. My per hour cost to operate my E-LSA is $12.25 and I purchased it for $4500.00.
 
Dean said:
Do you own your Glider or do you rent? Not knowing much about gliders, what is the cost to purchase and maintain one? 16 hours at a cost of $260 is $16.25 per flight our. My per hour cost to operate my E-LSA is $12.25 and I purchased it for $4500.00.
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That depends, gliders can be had for less than $10K and that includes the trailer... or upwards over $100K depending on age of the glider, performance and condition. Fixed cost for insurance per year is proportional to the cost of the glider and the pilots experience.

The variable cost is the cost of launch method, Aero Tow, Ground Launch (Winch or Auto), or Self Launch. Self Launch (motor gliders) increase the basic cost of the glider astronomically, plus adding engine maintanence and fuel costs (minimal).

Aero tow costs depends on "commercial services" which are much higher and can double the cost of flying with a soaring club that provides their own aero tow. Club Costs and charges can vary greatly across the country depended on how they are set up.

Ground launch or "Winch" is the cheapest operation but not the best for towing to an area of lift.
 
jasc15 said:
How does someone without a commercial license gain many hours without spending their entire salary on flying? Do you just look for volunteer opportunities? I cant see myself flying more than an hour or so each month once i earn my PPL, which won't improve my piloting skills much. How do those with PPLs deal with this? This is more than just a question of affording plane rental, it's about finding other opportunities to fly.
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A rich boss helps....

I've been getting to play with this a bit:
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And this will be meeting us in Indonesia after it's fitted with amphibs at Wipaire:

3548054415_02f1d4010f.jpg


Owner said he'll pay for my ratings in both when I get off this hitch.:D
 
While not quite as exotic as Henning, I, too, got a lot of "free" time as a boat captain for someone. First in a 182, then 185. He put me on the insurance and gave me access for just the gas. I really hope to pay that forward someday when I have an airplane.

This almost encourages another thread. . ."Being a Benefactor". How many owners have provided access of their AC to others "for free"; and how many pilots have benefitted from knowing such individuals?
 
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akite said:
In the past two months I have been able to get 11.3 hours for $240 in tows.
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Either you have expensive tows, or you aren't staying up long :D

I have 10 hours in three flights ($120 in tows) here in WI so far.
 
jhausch said:
This almost encourages another thread. . ."Being a Benefactor". How many owners have provided access of their AC to others "for free"; and how many pilots have benefitted from knowing such individuals?
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I think this hits the nail on the head. I should find more networking opportunities around the airport and develop relationships with people willing and able to put me in such a position. Im sure several of you have found such opportunities. Please enlighten me/us...
 
jasc15 said:
I think this hits the nail on the head. I should find more networking opportunities around the airport and develop relationships with people willing and able to put me in such a position. Im sure several of you have found such opportunities. Please enlighten me/us...
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PS - finding a benefactor is a bit like how I understand karma to work. You can't get good karma, you can only put out good karma and it will come back to you.

Be helpful, friendly, look presentable, act responsibly, and see what happens. Don't become someone's unpaid gopher or plane-detailer unless that is truly how you want to spend your time and deep down enjoy the effort. If all that does not result in finding a benefactor, be happy you've made the world a better place.
 
vontresc said:
Either you have expensive tows, or you aren't staying up long :D

I have 10 hours in three flights ($120 in tows) here in WI so far.
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$40 tows would be great, I am averging closer to $65 tows. Low as about $47 as high as $75 for 2000 foot tows depending on where I am flying.

Brian
 
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