Learn to Fly for $100?

As I said in the last post, I spent the weekend in northern Wisconsin where Georgia and I attended a memorial service for my nephew. The service was very well done and went a long way toward allowing Russ’ family and friends to move on.

After the service, I spent some time talking to a long time family friend who is also a pilot and certified flight instructor. Now in his upper 80’s, he is still flying but is no longer actively instructing. He had just finished doing the three takeoffs and landings he needed to be current to carry passengers and was going to fly a wreath drop on Memorial Day. This was his 26th year of doing the drop.

This long time aviation teacher told me that he had been going through some old papers and found an ad that had run in the local newspaper back in the early 1960’s. The ad promised that he would teach anyone to fly for under $100! Now, that wouldn’t get the student all the way to a private pilot certificate but, it included 10 hours of dual and 2 solo flights. At that time, he was instructing in an Aeronca Chief and charged $5 an hour for the airplane and $3 for his services. How times have changed!