the only thing is after getting the license, you need a plane. how *good* exactly is aircraft financing? cessna has it, and would include your flight training, but the skyhawk starts at like $190k... arg! [/B][/QUOTE]
the best bang for the buck is in used aircraft---the C-172 is a good starter airplane, and one 40 years old has 95% of the utility of the 2003 model at maybe 20% of the cost.
of course, you can fly without owning an airplane, but there's nothing better than owning.
and used aircraft are appeciating much faster than real estate.
advise, buy a used skyhawk for like 40K with decent radios, use it to learn to fly and save the aircraft rental, then sell it for 45K when you're done training in it, and trade up to a faster bird.
www.trade-a-plane.com
www.aerotrader.com
and a thousand other sources of aircraft listings.