I've wanted to be a pilot since I was 7, but as a kid it was always one of those things that everyone told me was not realistic (maybe that's why I've wanted it so bad).

Now I'm 30, and I'm still not a pilot, and that fact is pissing me off.

The fact is, at my income and with my student loans money is tight, and the potential costs of flying lessons concerns me, but I have been reading about ideas to cut costs and I think I have a plan, but I am worried that I am underestimating risk and overlooking better options.

I just accepted a job that comes with a significant raise and once I sell my house I intend to budget $750/month for flying. After flight training, I want to buy an airplane to fly at least once, ideally more, every week. For reference this is near the Metro Atlanta,GA area.

This is my rough plan:

1) Start Flight training, train with my instructor on rented equipment until I begin to solo.

2) Start Solo time, rent an aircraft to maintain training pace, and look for a plane for purchase

3) With a small down payment, finance a plane in the $15k-20K range

4) Work with instructor to learn my plane

5) Finish solo training in my plane, knowing that if it takes an extra 10, 20 or 30 hours to prep my for my check ride, I have more control over costs.

6) Pass Check Ride

7) Fly my plane until I complete or purchase the E-AB or E-SLA of my dreams.

8) Sell the plane to recover some training costs.

My math suggests that if I can depreciation, maintenance, insurance, parking, fuel and repairs come out to less than $9000 by the time I'm issued my PPL I will come out ahead.


Now for my concerns:

1) Am I underestimating the cost of owning a plane? Doing the math, one major failure does not seem like it would completely derail my budget. For example, (an offhand suggestion from pilot I don't know suggests) a top overhaul for multiple cylinders showing low compression on an annual could cost $10K, but I should recover at least half of that in resale, which would still leave $4K to cover other costs. But I am still worried that I am being too optimistic.

2) When researching planes and asking opinions the planes that are suggested include: Cessna 152s, Ercoupes, Talyorcrafts and Luscombe 8s.
a) When taking into account fuel burn, my research suggest the Luscombe 8 or Ercoupe would be cheapest
b) When taking into account what I want, the Luscombe 8 looks like the plane 7 year old me imagined himself flying.
I understand I will need a tail wheel endorsement (I want one even if my plane is tricycle), but am I underestimating the risks and insurance costs of flying a tailwheel with so little flight time?

3) The nearest airstrip to my new job (and presumably my new home) is a grass strip. Ideally I would like to be as close as possible to my plane, and I would be inclined to think that a grass strip would offer a cheaper tiedown (I have not called to price them), but would the grass strip's location and potential cost savings offset the risk of a low hours pilot flying to and from the strip regularly.

4) In spite of this massive word vomit, years of dreaming about this, and it being the primary thing I have thought about since I accepted the new job (even though I probably should be thinking about moving), I know I am missing something. The question is, am I missing something big enough to derail this plan?

If you read all of that, you deserve my thanks, if you have anything to add to this, please be an awesome human and tell me, even if it is just to tell me I'm an idiot.

TL,DR: I think too much, will it bankrupt me?