Tips and resources for frugal pilots

Whether you are based in Europe or in the States where flying is definitely cheaper, its still going to be an expensive hobby for most pilots. However, there are some great resources and ways for frugal pilots to bring down the cost of flying in order to keep flying.

Dan Ramsey, the pilot blogger behind The Frugal Pilot as well as the author of Budget Flying: How to Earn Your Private Pilot License and other books on low-cost aviation, knows a thing or two about flying on a budget. He has also recently written an article for General Aviation News containing the following ten tips for frugal pilots:

1. Remember why you fly.
2. Keep it simple.
3. Manage your wants.
4. Be smart about aircraft maintenance.
5. Learn from your experiences.
6. Learn from smarter pilots.
7. Shop smarter.
8. Barter and trade as you can.
9. Multitask flying.
10. A frugal pilot is not a cheap pilot, nor an unsafe one.

Dan goes into some detail about each and every one of the above tips which are actually pretty simple and based on commonsense. However, a quick look at Dan’s website reveals a number of articles under the following categories:

• Save on Instruction to help you cut the costs of getting a private pilot license.
• Save on Aircraft to show you ways to lower the costs of finding your wings.
• Save on Maintenance has proven ways of lowering the costs of flying a safe aircraft.
• Save on Expenses to help you reduce operating costs so you can fly more on less.

In other words, Dan’s site is definitely worth checking out by UK or EU based pilots.