Learning to fly can be expensive and time consuming if you don't maximize your time on the ground as well.

Two years ago, I started flying again, but didn't have an unlimited budget to fly whenever I wanted. I needed to maximize my efforts even though I didn't have time to fly every day or even every week. It's hard to learn something when you only do it once per month.

The key for me was what I did between flights.

Visualize on YouTube

Visualizing flights on YouTube helped me maximize my own flying.

There are really well produced videos that show the entire flight process from startup to landing. One of the hardest parts of learning to fly is talking to Air Traffic Control. Listening to YouTube pilots can help you get used to communicating without spending the money to learn this skill in the air.

There are fantastic instructors on YouTube, too.

Practice in a Home Simulator

Purchasing flight simulator software was some of the best money I spent when learning to fly.

Practicing on the ground without paying for flying time helped my actual flight lessons be more effective. I also purchased a yoke and throttle to make the software more realistic for practicing specific maneuvers. Having flight simulator software at home made it easy to get short bursts of practice in whenever I had time.

If you don't have simulator software at home, you are overspending to learn in the airplane.

Are you interested in flying and live near me? Let's go flying!