Here are the requirements to earn your private pilot's license in a single engine aircraft for general aviation:
First, find a flight school, instructor, aircraft and price range that you will be able to work with to begin training for your license. Review your schedule and dedicate part of it to weekly chunks of time when you know that you will go fly. Make sure you talk to the flight school and instructor about their prices and what they expect your timeline of completion to be based on the schedule you give them.
A modern plane with fuel is going to cost around $130 per hour plus about $30 to fly with an instructor so it is critical to budget well. To get a private pilot's license from start to finish, you are looking at an investment of about $12,000.
Here are the minimum requirements to get a private pilot's license:
- You must be at least 17 years old.
- Be able to read, speak, write and understand the English language.
- Log 40 hours of flight time
- 20 hours with an authorized flight instructor.
- 10 hours of solo flight (alone).
- Three hours of "cross-country" flight, which requires the student to go to an airport other than where they train, one hour of which is at night to an airport more than 100 miles away.
- Three hours of flight relying solely on the instruments in the plane (not being able to reference anything outside of the airplane).
- Three hours of flight within 60 days of taking the flight exam.
- Take a written exam of 100 questions and pass with a grade higher than a 70.
- Take an oral and flight exam and pass with an endorsement from an authorized tester.
- Pass a medical exam that tests vision, hearing and more.
Information gathered on Aviationwise