One of the most common questions I get is "How much does it cost to get your pilots license?" with the other being "Do you wear a parachute?". No we do not wear a parachute, the FAA only requires the pilots wear parachutes during specific situations such as aerobatic flights. In cases of engine failure, the plane can still glide a good distance. The Cessna 172 has a glide ratio of 9:1, meaning for every 1,000 feet of altitude, it can glide 9,000 feet. It's better to just have the pilot do an emergency landing in a sparsely populated area opposed to bailing out and letting the plane fly into someone's house.
I have actually avoided seeing how much it costs to get my pilots license since I know it's a decent chunk of money and would feel guilty seeing how much it actually is. But what's done is done so I decided to use a Sankey diagram to visualize a breakdown of my PPL. A Sankey diagram is a flow diagram that displays quantities in proportion to one another.
I pulled all flight related transactions from my credit card account and appropriately grouped them. The total cost of my PPL was $16,964, I was a bit surprised how much it costs since lots of flight schools quoted around $10,000 to $12,000 for a PPL but they only accounted for plane rental and instruction, not the exams and other random stuff you have to buy like insurance and a headset. The exam fees and random expenses accounted for almost 25% of my PPL!
It's a lot of money but this was spent over 1.5 years of flight training and I have no regrets. Being a pilot has taught me so many things, it's taught me that with hard work I can accomplish many things. Nobody is born a doctor, an engineer or a pilot, it takes hard work and practice. It has also taught me to keep calm and carry on. Part of training involves purposely getting the plane into uncomfortable situations such as stalls and spins and learning to stay calm, mitigate the problem, and maintain control of the plane. I've had instrument failures and navigation equipment died (I was seriously lost) and your 'fight or flight' response kicks in but all you can do is stay calm and fly the plane to the best of your abilities.
Notes on what I learned: Plotly, lists, dictionaries, chart-studio, hex color codes
Cover photo credit: Pilot Magazine
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