The Cost of an Instrument Rating - Airplane

By Dan
Pilot Training

The Cost of an Instrument Rating Summary

After you complete your private pilot certificate, the instrument rating is a likely next step. It helps you to fly in new types of weather and also increases your flying skills. The training cost of an instrument rating is a major factor in determining if a pilot is ready to take the next step. This post seeks to show one example of what the costs were that went into the training.

For the Instrument rating training under part 61, the FAA requires, at a high level, 50 hours of cross-country flight time and 40 hours of simulated instrument time. Some of this time was completed during the PPL training and the rest will have to be completed for the instrument rating.

Like I did in The Cost of a Private Pilot Certificate post, I will start with the summary and you can skip over the details if that is enough. I spent a total amount of $13,815 for my instrument rating. There were some factors that were different than my private pilot training which I will highlight next. This training took place and the end of 2022 to my check ride pass in April 2023

The Influencing Factors on Cost of Instrument Rating

After a few months of working on my instrument rating, I finally quit the overpriced flight school. At that point I had spent $3800 for a total of 11.3 hours of flight time, with some ground training mixed in. Instead, I decided to join a few local flying clubs to get cheaper time building options. I did most of my time building in a Piper Archer that charged a dry rate of $45. I then completed my actual dual instruction for my instrument rating in a different flying club that had a wet rate of $115.

Specific Cost Factors

  • One thing about finding an airplane that charged a dry rate is that time building didn't require distance. With that being the case, I could set an extremely efficient cruise power and burn less than standard cruise burn rates. This helped a lot, sometimes allowing per hour rates as low as $90.
  • Changing programs in the middle of training always adds extra costs. My flight school program was part 141 which was not going to require any time minimums, however as I calculated out the required lessons from the syllabus, the cost was going to end up being a lot more than my switch to part 61. The other justification for that was I would be spending that time actually flying and time building instead of several ground lessons that I could learn more on my own. In the end, I was flying because I enjoyed flying.
  • Training in a flying club is often one of the cheapest options. Instruction in the club I joined was billed at $40/hour. I also used Sporty's instrument course to prepare for and get my endorsement to take my written exam.
  • There are not many flight training scenarios in my mind where a home based simulator is able to provide much value other than instrument. Instrument training is geared a lot more around flying approaches and is very mental in nature. This is what makes a home simulator augment the training well. A flight simulator can hook up to Foreflight and you can fly the approaches and use the same EFB and tools at home as you will use in the airplane.

The Cost of an Instrument Rating by Categories

Let's now break that total down into some specific categories of costs.

Supplies and Fixed Costs

For the supplies category, my total costs were $410. The included the following items

  • Jeppesen Instrument and Commercial Textbook (I really like this one)
  • A Logitech Yoke (no rudder pedals)
  • Microsoft Flight Simulator and X-Plane

Memberships and Subscriptions

I spent $510 on membership and subscriptions. This was just the dues for the various flying clubs I joined during this time of training.

Exams

I paid a total of $775 for my instrument rating checkride and my FAA written exam. Those costs have risen since 2023.

Instructor Costs

My instructor costs were about $2,675 total. Of that, about $960 was from my actual instrument training leading up to the check ride. This is the training that took place in the flying club. The rest of that total was the initial training I received in the part 141 program at the flight school.

Flight Costs

Now for the flight training portion which I completed with a total of 80.9 flight hours. This was the amount it took to build up to the 50 hours of cross-country, 40 hours of simulated instrument, and complete the actual training with my instructor. The cost for these hours came out to about $9,800. As often as I could, I combined cross-country time building with simulated instrument time. All I had to do was bring along a safety pilot on my trips.

Summary

There you have it, those are the costs I incurred to obtain my airplane instrument rating. There are many elements that are expensive and many costs that may not initially be obvious to plan for. As expected, your numbers will not be the same as mine.