It Begins… Going After my Private Pilot Certificate
If you’ve been following my blog for some amount of time, you may recall a few aviation and privatepilot related posts. Well, my lovely wife booked a discovery flight for my birthday. Every single time I had a discovery flight on the books, something always managed to come up. I would end up working on the day I was scheduled to fly, or I’d be ready to fly and bad weather would show up. I had my discovery flight pushed probably 3 times in a row, week after week. Still no discovery flight. That was 2 years ago.
Last week, I was just looking back on how everything happened, so I called the airport on Wednesday and was in the air on Friday. I guess 3rd year’s a charm or something because the entire process was extremely smooth. I showed up and met my instructor, signed a quick form, grabbed a headset, and dove straight into preflight. My CFI went counterclockwise around the airplane and thoroughly examined just about every nut, bolt, and rivet. We sumped the fuel to ensure there was no contamination, then continued our preflight inside the cockpit. A few minutes later we fired up the engine and were taxiing for runup.
With runup checks complete, we were ready for takeoff. It was an absolutely beautiful morning with buttery smooth air. We were flying for about 30 minutes and ended up taking the controls and doing a few shallow bank turns. There were some similar principles that I remembered from the simulator, but it was a different world feeling the weight of the yoke while in the air. I had a much greater sense of speed and spacial awareness than could ever be acheived in the simulator. After our short 30 minute flight, I was hooked. That same day I went home and bought my private pilot study guide and got to work. My goal is to take the FAA written exam first so I can go ahead and have that out of the way before I start pursuing my flight hours. I feel it may be a little more efficient to have my book knowledge and theory down first before trying to get any flight hours in.
Recently I’ve been daydreaming of flying, and just browsing the web searching for the cheapest way possible to get in the air. Here are the fruits of my labor.
Kit aircraft manufacturer Vans has a reputation for being the most popular manufacturer of safe and reliable kit airplanes in the market today. They offer a vast array of models to fit nearly any mission. The most affordable of their entire lineup is the Vans RV-3. The RV-3 is a single place (one seat) aircraft capable of aerobatic flight. The RV-3 can achieve a top speed of 195-207 mph, depending on your engine choice. Cruising at 55% throttle at 8,000 feet, the RV-3 is capable of a 715-770 mile range on a single tank of fuel. The RV-3 kit can be purchased for $21,750.
It is worth noting that this is the price for the airframe and does not include shipping. The avionics, engine, and prop will have to be purchase separately. The recommended powerplant for the Vans RV-3 is the Lycoming O-360, which you can buy from Vans for around $23,500, bringing your total to around $45,250, excluding avionics and a propeller. According to vansaircraft.com, the rough approximation of time required to build the RV-3 and similar models is around 2,000-2,200 hours.
The fourth most affordable aircraft is the Zenith STOL CH701. The starting price for a complete kit (again, just the airframe) is $14,000. The STOL (Short Take Off and Landing) CH701 can take off in as little as 100 feet! This makes it ideal for exploring remote destinations with less-than-ideal landing conditions. The Zenith CH701 is designed to fly using the Rotax series of powerplants. The entry level Rotax 912 engine can be found for around $16,503 bringing the cost of the engine and airfame to about $30,503. This still excludes the cost of a propeller and avionics.
The CH701 has a useful load of 520 pounds, which is excellent considering the empty weight of the aircraft is 580 pounds. The cabin is 40 inches wide and accommodates two seats! This makes the CH701 a great option for two travelers to remote parts of the world. Running a Rotax 912 powerplant, the CH701 has a range of 372 miles before needing to refuel.
This aerobatic aircraft checks all the boxes for an affordable single seat plane. Unlike most kits, you can purchase literally everything required to fly for $29,795. This includes the wings, fuselage, tail, engine, propeller, avionics, upholstery, everything. This is a great example of making fly affordable and available to nearly everyone.
The wings of the Sonex Onex are foldable, allowing pilots to store their aircraft in their home garage or shed. This can end up saving owners thousands of dollars in hangar and tie-down fees! This also makes for easy and convenient transportation. The Onex can easily fit onto a trailer and be towed to the local airport for a day of flying.
The Onex base powerplant is the 80 hp 2180 Aerovee. With this engine, the Onex is capable of climbing at a rate of 700-900 feet per minute. It has a 8,000 feet cruse speed of 155 mph with a range averaging 535 miles. The Onex is available in two configurations so it can be built as a tricycle gear or a taildragger.
The Tornado is almost getting into the ultralight category, but is officially defined as an LSA (light sport aircraft) by the FAA. The overall cost of the Tornado I airframe kit, if purchased all together, is $11,649. This price does not include the cost of engine, propeller, and avionics, due to customer preferences. However, when you factor in these costs, you can estimate a total of something like $6,000 for the engine, $1,500 for the propeller, and $2,000 for avionics. This puts the total cost of your build at an estimated $21,149.
The Tornado has the shortest build time yet with average estimates in the 150-300 hour range. When equipped with a Rotax 503 engine, the Tornado is capable of cruising in excess of 95 mph. With a fuel capacity of 10 gallons, the Tornado can fly for around 250 miles before needing to refuel. The Tornado is extremely light, weighing in at just 375 pounds without fuel. This likely contributes to its surprising climb rate of 1,500 feet per minute with only 46 horsepower! It only needs a good 200 feet to take off and land.
Yes, the name may be kind of funny, but this plane easily takes the crown of the most affordable private plane in the world. Kit plane builders usually fall into 3 categories. Quick-build Kits: builders receive parts of the plane with major assembly already done for them, saving hundreds of hours in labor. Standard Kits: builders receive plane parts that are less assembled upon delivery. This is usually a few thousand dollars cheaper than a quick-build kit, but also takes hundreds of hours more to assemble. And finally, plans. Some builders prefer to just purchase the blueprints of a plane they like, and find the materials themselves and build it from scratch.
To put this in perspective, the blueprint plans for the Sonex Onex retail for $750. The Affordaplane is only available as plans. There is no kit for the Affordaplane, as scratch building is the only option. The plans for the Affordaplane are just that: affordable. At a mere $20, the plans for this aircraft cost as much as something at your local bookshop! The entire blueprint is availabe as a PDF, so you can download it instantly. The whole thing is 279 pages, which covers every single aspect of the Affordaplane aircraft.
There are a few different options available for building the Affordaplane, and depending on which options you choose, you can build the Affordaplane in around 250 hours for $4,000-$8,000.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the photos used in this article. I have placed links in each of the photos showing where I found them.
Yes, Thrustmster released the T-Flight HOTAS X Joystick way back in 2008, over 10 years ago. By technology’s standards, this thing is a relic! But can the HOTAS X stand up to the true test of time? Well… it seems it can. The fact that this thing is still readily available is a testament to how much staying power this hardware has.
First Impressions
The build quality of this joystick is impressive for its price range. For $50 (even less if you can find it on sale) you get a great entry level stick and throttle. At first, the sheer number of buttons overwhelmed me. As a casual gamer, I’m only used to about 4-6 buttons and a D-pad. However, once I counted the sort of “secret” buttons like R3 and L3, I had 11 buttons plus a D-pad. So the 12 buttons on the HOTAS X isn’t THAT much different. I suppose the brand new hand placement takes a bit of getting used to.
Default Configuration
Having the ability to manually configure the buttons however you want is awesome. There are a few default configurations that come built into the firmware which is convenient. That makes it super convenient for certain game titles. Unfortunately, there is no default configuration for X-Plane 11. Not a deal-breaker, but an X-Plane 11 default would have been nice. That would have made playing X-Plane 11 a breeze out-of-the-box. Regardless, I would likely be setting my own custom configuration anyway.
Ergonomics
From the moment I first put my hand on the stick, it felt great. I purchased the Thrustmaster HOTAS X joystick with the intention to log many hours in X-Plane 11. That said, I need my stick and throttle to be as comfortable as possible for when I settle in to those long flights. And the same level of comfort goes for the throttle as does the main flight stick. Both elements are a pleasure to operate and my fingers fall perfectly where they need to in order to reach all the buttons. Another great feature is that the HOTAS has the ability to be separated or joined. Depending on your desk size and comfort level, you can operate the throttle and joystick up to a shoulder’s length apart, or even farther. Please note this flight stick is designed for right-handed players.
Overall Experience
Full disclosure: I’ve only put 17 hours on this joystick and this has been my first experience with a HOTAS setup. However, in that 17 hours, I’ve had absolutely no problems with this stick and throttle. I love the fact that you can attach the throttle to the stick for small desktops and pull them apart for when you have more space. The throttle and stick even comes with its own Alan key built into the base so you can quickly and easily combine and separate the stick and throttle. I look forward to putting more hours on the Thrustmaster HOTAS X Joystick as it is a superbly built piece of hardware.
I recently came across the opportunity to make my first decision toward my sport aviation journey. I had about $100 to spend, so I had a choice: I could book a discovery flight at my local airport, or I could get a flight simulator and a joystick. One experience would be real and over in an hour, the other would simulate reality, but I could play forever!
Why Not FSX?
If I were making this choice in late 2006, I’d probably go with Microsoft Flight Simulator X, just because they have dominated the flight simulator market for so long. Microsoft hasn’t updated their flight sim in several years, and I chose between FSX (released in 2006) and X-Plane 11 (released in 2017).
First Impressions
“Woah, that’s a massive download.” was my earliest impression. The core game and the included free DLC is pushing 60GB! Once I downloaded and launched, X-Plane 11 greeted with a basic, no-nonsense menu with a handful of options. I started my first flight, and promptly crashed. My joystick wasn’t working properly.
X-Plane Flight Configuration Screen
Joystick Configuration
It was unfortunate that my joystick didn’t load into a default configuration for X-plane, considering its popularity. Overall, not a huge deal. I would have been configuring my joystick anyway, but it’s more likely I would have done it later if I wasn’t satisfied with the default. As a total non-pilot civilian, I was (and still am) struggling with what specifically all the hundreds of commands are, and which ones I should map where. Despite being unclear on the commands, mapping the buttons is very straightforward.
Graphics
Woah. These are some of the cleanest graphics I’ve seen in a game. Runs well enough on my old GTX 970. It hangs up every now and again, but it’s barely worth mentioning. Only a 1 second hang every 30 minutes or so. X-Plane 11 is extremely stable running on Windows 10. I’ve not had a single crash (knock on wood).
This screengrab doesn’t even do it justice.
Simulation (Gameplay?)
Like I mentioned earlier, I’m not yet a pilot, so I can’t yet speak to the realism of the flight dynamics. However, the fact that X-Plane 11 comes with an airfoil maker leads me to believe the dynamics are pretty darn accurate. The airfoil maker allows users to design and test their own custom wing shapes, which is perfect for those interested in designing and building their own planes from scratch, plans, or kits!
X-Plane 11 also comes with a plane maker application that allows users to create and test their own full aircraft from scratch. You can create your design in plane maker, or even import your own .obj 3D files.
My only minor complaint is the radio communication within the sim. The speech isn’t the most realistic and comes off feeling very robotic, but it is great to help me get a better idea of how aviation radio communication is supposed to work.
Weather System
Okay, this thing is awesome. You can program every possible weather scenario at virtually any airport in the world. There are options to set custom cloud cover and wind conditions ever 10,000 feet. Perfect for practicing the most difficult crosswind landings.
Custom Weather Options Page
My personal favorite option is downloading live weather conditions at the location where you’ll be taking off. That way it keeps things interesting while also providing the most realistic flying conditions.
Time of day and live weather conditions matched to the real world
Community
Despite this game being nearly 2 years old, it doesn’t feel old at all. I think the biggest reason being the community behind this software. I feel bad calling it a game! And after buying the simulator, X-Plane even offers users the opportunity to upgrade their license for professional use.
The base game comes with 11 default aircraft, which is plenty in my opinion, to learn the basic mechanics of flight. However, there is a massive community on xplane.org who generously provide a vast library of new content. There you can download new planes, airports, and even plugins. (Hopefully there will soon be a plugin that will improve radio communication!) All-in-all, X-Plane 11 has proven to be an excellent simulator and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.
Full disclosure: at the time of this writing, I’ve logged 19 hours on X-Plane 11. I have every intention to keep flying and customizing for the many years that it will take me to make a fortune, get my pilot’s license, and rent a plane on a regular basis. But until then… X-Plane 11 is awesome.
Something I’ve always had an interest in, but always have never hand anything close to the amount of cash required to pursue, is sport aviation. But you’ve only got one life, right? Might as well start toward those bucket list items sooner rather than later!
Is This Random?
Well, not really. My parents’ first date was in a little single-engine Cessna flying over Six Flags theme park near Atlanta, GA. My dad held his private pilot’s license for a few years until I came along. Eventually, it became too expensive to keep paying the hangar fees, annuals, operating expenses, maintenance, etc. However, despite expenses and life events, you could say sport aviation is in my blood.
So What’s The Plan?
As much as I’d love to have a small mountain of fun money just chilling in a mattress someplace, I have a very small budget to pursue this dream. I enjoy attending the Sun N Fun airshow. I’ve been two out of the past three years. Every time I’ve been, there has been a strong showing of home-built aircraft. Some of them are more affordable than I was imagining. There are several models that are around the same price as a new Nissan Maxima!
Baby Steps
So I’ll definitely need an action plan to get this sport aviation dream off the ground (pun intended). First, I’ll need a pilot’s licence. I’m still debating on whether or not owning an aircraft is everything it’s cracked up to be. There’s just something daunting about being locked into a single make/model of aircraft, and being completely responsible for insurance, maintenance, and operating expenses. I’ll be sharing my thoughts as this idea evolves.
I worked some extra side jobs this past Christmas and got about $100 USD to start this little journey (I wasn’t kidding when I said I had a very small budget to pursue this dream). I could do what I could to find a local airport that was selling discovery flights for that cheap (most discovery flights are in the $130-$150 range) and get about an hour of hands-on experience.
Or, I could take that money and get a joystick and flight simulator set up on my home computer. I went with the latter. While it doesn’t provide the sensation of real flight, it gives me a heck of a lot more time to learn when compared to a one hour discovery flight. At least when I start looking for that first discovery flight, I’ll have logged several hours in the simulator and won’t be completely lost in the cockpit of a Cessna 172.
Anyway, that’s it! This is definitely a long term goal an I’m not expecting to be anywhere close to achieving this one for another 5-10 years or so. Regardless, I’ll be posting more about this journey as the months roll on, and sharing all my discoveries along the way. Happy new year, and learn something new!
