Patch's Flight Schools Guide

Flight schools specialize in helping you get your private pilot’s license, but they don’t specialize in finding the best deals for the pilot supplies you need to get there.  Sure, they’ll sell you the pilot supplies you need, but they’re not going to save you time and/or money on them, you need to shop around.  You can save yourself a considerable amount of money if you take a little time and look for exactly what you need at the best price.

One of the most popular pilot shops is Sporty’s.  You can get their catalog, and I highly recommend it because it’s fun to look through all the stuff they sell.  You can save yourself some money buying your supplies through Sporty’s (instead of your local flight school) and usually get entered into a contest to win an airplane (I haven’t won mine yet).  There are several other pilot shops online that you can go to and I highly recommend you shop around and look for the best deals. If I find a product at a great price, I’ll usually include a link to it directly from the article you’re reading or somewhere on the page.

In my rush to get started flying and taking lessons, I didn’t spend a lot of time shopping around.  Since then, I’ve used various online pilot shops, but for some reason, I completely forgot about Amazon.com. I just recently did a big search on Amazon and found out they beat Sporty’s and just about every other pilot shop online or off.

Here’s an example:

ASA Exam Test Prep

• Sportys:           $12.95
• Amazon.Com: $10.36

That’s just one example.  Just about every product I searched for on Amazon was cheaper than Sporty’s.  Not only do you save on the product, you also save on your shipping costs.  As a matter of fact, if you spend more than $25 (and you probably will) you’ll get free shipping with Amazon.com.  That same order at Sporty’s will cost $7.50 to ship.

In order to make finding everything you need is easy as possible.  I’ve set up my own Amazon pilot shop.  You can find the link at the top of the page where it says pilot shop.  If you click on that, It’ll take you to everything you need to get started, and more.  I even include links to magazine subscriptions you can get through Amazon and save a lot of money. If you’re a fan of Microsoft flight simulator or any flight simulator really, you’ll find everything you need, including the accessories at a considerably cheaper price and you’ll find elsewhere.

Yes, you’re right, I do earn an income from my Amazon pilot shop, but you save money.  So it’s a win-win situation.  You save some money and can afford more flying time and I make some money and can afford more flying time.  We both get in the air and enjoy this thing we love so much.

So check out my special page with everything you need when it comes to books videos, magazines, test prep material and more.

Tagged as: books, Finances, flight simulator, supplies, test prep, videos