When General Aviation was affordable

I'm a 27 year old guy who just obtained my CPL 5 days ago. On the topic of today's generation and pilot careers, I can gurrantee 95% of the reason less young are getting involved is simply the price it costs now. I know so many young people who have been inspired by old age pilots their whole lives and all the stories, they dream to fly just like that. But for most of them it is simply financially impossible.

I learned to fly in the 1950s, using money a teen age kid could earn. I took an FAA written exam in 1958, and became certified pilot before graduating from high school. I purchased a Cessna 120 in 1970 for $2600. I still own and fly it.

Lawyers happened. I have a buddy (older fellow) that payed $12 per hour to get his certificate. That included the plane (wet) and the instructor. Years later he owned 4 or 5 float planes and operated a very popular fly in lodge in Alaska.

I obtained my pilot's license back in '77, at age 17. It was not inexpensive, but I was determined to get that license, so I poured all of my hard earned money into that endeavor. Took another year and a half to achieve my IFR rating, but with that done, I was free to go out and explore the world via the old Piper Cub I had been renovating, while taking lessons. Great little plane that took me just about anywhere I felt safe to land. I've made landings in the Grand Canyon, where no plane has a right to be. On top of mountains that had no landing strip, just a smooth (relatively) expanse of grass on a slope. Experiences I wouldn't trade for the world. Hang gliding got real big in my life at that time, as well, and I had many a flight from remote sites I had to hike w/ glider on shoulder to get to. No way I could do any of that stuff today, as the regulations have gotten rediculously complex and prohibitive.

The two biggest issues that have made aviation ridiculously expensive are 1) the FAA changing thier mission statement from " promoting Aviation" to "Making AViation Safe". 2) Tort Lawyers allowed to sue everybody about everything, regardless of any involvement in the cause of an incident. The Lawyers have turned the courts into their own money grabbing theaters.

The lawyers where one of the major factors that caused Aviation expenses to goi up as you stated product liability! I learned to fly in the Early 70’s I could rent a J-3 for $6.50 hour wet 80 octane was 37 cents a gallon. I rented a new Cardinal RG for $28.00 an hour wet. I also rented a a PA-23-150 for $45.00 hour wet. I was in high school when I learned my private Pilot Certificate, Aviation kept me off the streets and out of trouble. Unlike many of my contemporaries. I chased airplanes instead of automobiles and girls. I caught up with them latter🤣. No one in my family flew so I did not have a network of folks behind me. Except at the airport. I retired from the 121 world and corporate world and a former examiner on 5 different transport jet airplanes. Aviation today is crazy expensive! And untouchable buy so many today.🤯🛫

I'm almost 71 years old now, and never realized my dream of getting a pilot license -- so your choice of music for that montage of planes at the ends really hits home.

I learned to fly in the 60'. I paid approximately $14 per hour and soled at 6.5 hours of training. The first a/c I ever owned was a 1957 Piper Tri-pacer that only cost me $6800 (worth about $45000 now) I flew 22 years in the USAF. I bought a brand new Cessna 172 for only $28000. I have over 16000 (2872 combat) hours in all kinds of a/c. I am a very fortunate person for having lived my life's dream of flying for military, business, and pleasure. My daughter got her pilots license before she got her driver's license, her choice❤. As ChuckYeager always said, "FLY SAFELY!"

I worked at three airports in the 1960's. A young kid gassing airplanes, washing windshields, propping engines as needed and mowing grass runways and doing office work. There was a waiting list for tiedowns and hangers. We rented a Champ for $10@hr, 150's for $13, Skyhawk for $17 and the fully equipped Skylane for $20. I pumped 80/87 for 43 cents per gallon. I was paid $2 per hour. Overtime went to my flying fund, and I was allowed to fly a 150 around the patch when gassing them up at the end of the day. In 1967 my dad bought a tired old Champ for, sit down, $800 with a fresh annual and good fabric. Dad and I flew the heck out of that old bird until it failed the punch test a few years later on. As most of my time towards my PPL was in that, I figured it cost me not much more than $250 to get my license, but I had already been flying a Schweitzer sailplane for a couple years. I soloed before I could legally get a driver's license. Much of our business was training soldiers out of Korea and Vietnam using their GI Bill benefits. As that ran out, business dwindled and there were plenty of tiedown and hangers available. What stands out in my mind is when Cessna had legal trouble from the seat adjustment tracks and pins not latching and the pilot ending up in the back seat upon rotation. Insurance rates seemed to soar about that time and the price of a new Skyhawk went from that of a Chevy to that of a Mercedes. The 73 oil embargo was another nail in the coffin. Flying a Skylane at high power setting burning 25GPH was saved for departures. Paul Poberezny and the EAA were local and he'd happen by from time to time. The convention having begun at Timmerman where I worked, got bigger and bigger as alternatives to the expense of buying and flying were explored. At one private airport, ultralights became popular and seemed to be the grass roots savior of general aviation. But even that dwindled after some years. There are a lot of things out there to spend one's free time and money on. The Airlines started crowding out where a guy could fly with no electrical system. I think things just got too complicated and too expensive.

My Dad, J. I. Tone worked in a machine shop during WWII when I was born in 1944. After the war he went to work at North American Aviation in El Segundo working swing shift in the model shop and in 1947 learned to fly at Central Airport in Los Angeles (gone now). In 1949 he opened his own precision machine shop on Hawthorne Airport in a group of hangers he built on a 20 year lease from the City. We had many planes, mostly Cubs, that are still flying today in So Cal. By that time I was riding a lot when he could take the time and was flying front seat by the time I was 10 or 11. He moved his shop to Inglewood in the mid 50’s but he had bought a wrecked 1938 Ryan SCW and brought it back to life with a lot of improvements. I flew with him countless hours knowing sometime I would get a license. It was an unbelievable time to be growing up especially with a machine shop and an airport for a playground. He unfortunately passed away in late 1963 when he was just 50 in an accident and when I was in Jr. college. My life was devastated, everything changed. Everything was sold. My new job was to watch over mom take care of her if needed and I did until she passed at 96 years old. I never got back into a private airplane again….. I just couldn’t eventho I had many opportunities. I still have the love of flying even at 79 and cruise thru Municipals when on vacation which sometime drives my wife nuts. Private aviation will never be the fun it was back then…..You are so right.

I learned to fly in 1974 at the age of 25 while attending a midwestern university's A&P mechanic and flight school. I was inspired by Richard Bach's book of short flying stories, "A Gift of Wings". I soloed a Cessna 150 in 40 hours, took the follow-up aerobatics course and then was able to rent the school Decathlon 8KCAB for $16 per hour wet to get tailwheel experience. Got a mechanic job with Learjet and soon bought a Cessna 120 for $4,500. Still own the 1947 Cessna 120 and have put 1900 hours on it over the years. Planes current value is about $34,000. Insurance is about $1200 per yr/full air and ground liability, w/full hull coverage. It's a wonderful airplane that fits me like a comfortable old shoe. I have always flown private VFR Day and simply for the love of flying. No regrets.

Private pilot here. Pretty much every one of my issues is related to costs, it’s WAY too expensive nowadays and has only gotten worse in recent years

11:34 Piper's 'Flying Milkstool' the Tri-Pacer. I started flying with my parents in 1972/73 in one of these. We upgraded to a 1964 C-172, and then a 1968 C-177 Cardinal. I remember the fuel costs increasing, then aircraft parts skyrocketed up about tenfold in 1980 or 1981. My father founded a private flying club in 1982, and didn't have another airplane of his own until he retired around 1995. That last airplane was a 1975 C-150 with STOL kit and oversized tires for soft-field landings. He & my mother would fly out of a small grass field across from their house, until about 2006, when they sold the C-150 and retired from flying permanently, into their early 70's. My son is now a pilot, and owns his own 1964 Mooney 20C. His avionics cost more than any of the first 3 airplanes my father owned. I grew up memorizing VOR tower signals, and now they are also a thing of the past. How fast things changed!

This video really hits home for me. I actually started my flight training in 1960 at the tender age of 15. It was in a very small town with a short dirt runway and a couple of Aeronca Champs used for training. The flight instructor was an old military pilot whose personal airplane was an old military Cessna T-50. I mowed lawns for $2.00 each on Saturdays and then went out to the airport and took a flying lesson. If I remember correctly, I paid $6.00 for a 30-minute flight. I kid you not! I only mowed 3 lawns a week, so I never had more money than $6.00 per weekend. I was able to accumulate about 5 hours of flight training before my family moved away from the area and my training came to a halt. Fast forward to 1967. I was then in the Army stationed at Ft Benny, GA. There was a civilian flying club on the base on Lawson Field. I was able to complete my training and get a private pilot certificate in a Cessna 150. I don't ever remember taking a written test. Only a flight test. Then after I was discharged from the Army in 1968 I used the G.I. bill to continue training. I eventually received a Commercial Multi-engine rating. I owned two different airplanes in my flying career. I had a Piper PA-22 108 and eventually, I co-owned a Cessna 210. However, the cost started to skyrocket for fuel, maintenance, and insurance. So I sold both planes and just rented Cherokees and Cessnas for a few more years. In 1990 I was laid off from my career job and all flying slowed to a crawl. My last flight as Poilot-in command was in a Cessna 172 in 2003. Now I am fully retired and can not afford the high cost of the rentals. When I bought my Piper colt, I paid $5,500.00 for it in about 1980. Today you will pay over $25,000.00 for a Colt. I should never have sold that airplane!

I recently worked on a C140 that had the original dealer brochure in it. What a hoot. At the back there was a passage from Cessna that read something like "Our engineers and advisors have put the math together and your Cessna should cost no more than $17.50 for its' annual at an authorized Cessna dealer" and I couldn't help but laugh. $20 for an annual??! What a time! (Considering they'll run you at least $1,000 nowadays)

I'm in the UK. My dad was a veteran light aircraft instructor/examiner having learned to fly in 1935 in the Auxiliary Air Force (Reserve) and when WW2 broke out he was made a flying instructor in the RAF. After WW2 he went back to his job but aviation was always his passion and he was still teaching and examining at 81 years. I got my passion for aviation from him and was regularly flying in light aircraft from about 1963. I agree whole heartedly with your analysis. As a young boy I recall asking my dad how much it cost to fly. His answer was "A bob a minute". A bob was one shilling and there were 20 shillings in the £ so that equated to £3 per hour! We had quite a few years at the local flying club where I learned to fly around 1967 when the rates were £4 17s 6d (just under £5 an hour). The flying was simpler and much more fun then with less regulation and people would spend the whole day (or even weekend) at the airfield and I was one of them. I went on to be a commercial pilot but always kept flying GA instructing and also examining. After retiring from the airlines I was CFI at the same flying club but after about 3 years I got fed up with all the bureaucratic nonsense so decided to hang up my headset for good. I really believe my generation had the best days of GA. I still maintain an interest and call in at the flying club for a chat and coffee but the culture has changed now. With the mountain of rules and regulations which are now imposed on GA most flying clubs in the UK have become flying schools with very little character like the olden days.

I was an A&P and worked for American flyers. They traded A&P work all the way up to single commercial. I doubt I could have ever paid for it. It was a big part of changing my life for the better.

I had a paper rout and saved $300 so that I could learn to fly. I started my 1st lesson at 15 and soloed after 8 hours flight time at 16 which was the minimum age for solo flight at the time. In the following year I spent the rest of the $300 on renting the Piper PA11 and worked part time at the airport for flight time to make the required 40 hours to get the private pilot license about 3 months after my 17th birthday in 1957. I loved flying, airplanes, and cars and decided to go to college and become an engineer. Unfortunately college (through graduate school), marriage, kids, etc, stopped my flying. Now into the sunset of my life, with many pictures of airplanes of the 1930s, -40s, -50s on my home office walls I dream of my early hours in that Piper PA11.

I grew up in a light aircraft family. A friend owned a Funk which he called his "Pregnant Portuguese Pigeon". We (my family) belonged to the local flying assoc. Monthly we flew to some new location to meet 15 to 50 other flying families. It was wonderful!

My flying adventure took place in the mid seventies. I was still in high school when I got my private ticket in 1977, and as I recall it took around $3000 bucks from start to check ride. I had a blast for a few years, especially taking my high school dates flying around the city at night. I went on to go after the com/instrument ratings but costs had already began to soar and as we know prospects were not great for pilots in the early eighties unless you had a very fat wallet to move forward or were in the military. I really enjoyed my time flying, but now in my sixties have to live vicariously through watching youtube video creators and their flying adventures. Funny thing is, I could almost afford to get back into it today, but age and time are a cruel mistress and this is one hobby that can kill an old guy in short order if not careful. No regrets, but doing it on my own financially back then was just not going to happen. I did have some friends who went on to fly commercially but had well off parents to support them financially through their training. I finally abandoned the idea, but never lost the love of aviation. Those were the days ! Cheers.