I think Wolfala is pretty close with his costs except - perhaps - that most people won't do their initial training in SR20 / 22's. I'm learning in DA-20's out of John Wayne in Orange County and the costs he quotes are pretty similar to what I'm seeing.
The DA-20 works out at about $130/hr wet and my instructor is $55/hr. The school has a variety of aircraft ranging from a recently added Evektor Sportstar LSA for about $100/hr up to SR22 Turbos at $350/hr and an Extra 300 at $369/hr. For the fatties
doing initial training, there are a bunch of 172's and a pair of DA-40's which will set you back between $140/hr and $175/hr.
The school advised me when I started out that I should budget between $12k and $15k all up and so far, that seems to be pretty realistic. Most of the guides you'll read on getting your PPL will tell you the minimum 40 hours is unrealistic for most students and one of the reasons I went with this school was they were the only ones to acknowledge this when giving me expected costs. So far I'm pretty happy. I was also given the $6K quotes by other schools, but so no reason for them to believe I'd be that much above average so assumed they were being less than truthful.
If the weather holds and work doesn't get in the way, I should be doing my first solo in the next few days.
