Learning to fly - PPL

[crapper]

I was working at RIAT last week and really reignited my passion for aviation again. It has got me thinking whether I should have a go a learning to fly again. Let me give you a bit of my background.

When I was at Uni (9 years) ago I was part of the University Air Squadron and managed to get 46 hours in a Grob Tutor and 9 of those hours solo. It was great fun and really enjoyed it but when I finished Uni, I had no way to afford to fly off my own back.

I have looked at PPL's and locally (in Bournemouth) I can do the course for £8300, there are probably a number of hidden charges but at least it gives me a ball park figure. I did have a look at a Florida intensive course but they were advertising £3600 for 3 week but I'm expecting that figure to go up significantly when I send an enquiry.

Does anyone have experience in this area? Can you give me any advise?

[crapper]

Wow fantastic advice guys, really useful. I`m really surprised that my flying hours may be able to assist with my flying training as I thought that 9 years later it would not mean anything. I think I could get back into it pretty well, an area I didn`t cover in my course was navigation so would need to cover that in full. From the chat going on, I would be happy to fly in the US with the `easier` airspace, the airport I used to fly out of had a lot of traffic and a number of fast jets so I am used to crazy circuits! I`ll take a look at that flyer.co.uk and see what I can get from there. One question I do have is how many hours a year do you need to do to maintain a PPL once qualified?