Back while I was working at Kohler, I got it into my head that I wanted to look getting my private pilot’s license. Here in Milwaukee, we have the benefit of having a great fixed base operator (Spring City Aviation) at a super convenient little airport (Timmerman Field). I checked their website and saw that they had a “discover flight day” coming up and on the appointed Saturday, I showed up and checked it out. For $100, I was able to hop on the waiting list to get up in a plane with an instructor. While I waited, I sat in a hanger, listening to a lecture about what’s involved in getting into general aviation.
In the end, I really liked the experience and wanted to get started but the cost was a bit of a problem. Kohler paid a lot more that UWM but I wasn’t earning enough to justify the cost. I was told by multiple people that it was going to cost at least $20,000 and that running out of money along the way would be an issue.
These days, I definitely have more money available for such things but not enough to go for a private pilot’s license. Despite that fact, I was thinking about using something like King Schools to work on self-study for my written exam. My thought is that if I don’t have enough self-discipline to get that far, I can just stop here. My fear is passing the exam and then still lacking the money for in-air instruction.
If I do this, I might just start with my part 107 drone pilot exam (seems easy enough) and then go from there. Have a thought on the topic? Feel free to drop a comment, below.
[ Cover photo by Maria Teneva on Unsplash ]