Financing my flight training..

[Langeveldt]

Hello all

I am 17 and currently doing my A Levels.. I am aiming to get three high grades at A level... And then afterwards I really want to make inroads into making my dream of flying for a living come true...

I am all to aware of the crippling costs of self funded flight training (ive looked into RAF and I really dont think the lifestyle is for me)..

Im really not sure about doing a degree immediatly after I leave college.. After all it is three years out (or more) when I really want to be getting my act together and flying.. It is also three years where I will be unable to earn much money.. Therefore I would like to try and avoid all the added costs that University brings and get straight into my flight training...

Two questions really :) Would it be an option to work whilst doing my flight training? I would need quite a bit of finance available, and I am worried what I will be able to do without any qualifications past my A-Levels... Basically id like some advice on money matters, im sure there are lots of people who have been in the same boat!

Secondly, Dad is really pressurizing me into going to University before I even think about flying... I appreciate he would love his son to get a degree... But I would prefer to get training, without the added costs of university.. And I dont want three years of uni if my heart isnt really in it!! I would like the lowdown on the pros and cons of this route..

Many thanks, you guys are a great help :D

[matt_k_craven]

Hi there, im in exactly the same position as you (finishing A-levels), but a few universities (salford being one!), do aero engineering with pilot studies (a PPL + Beng). Not sure what your going to do at uni if you go but that is always an option. Also have you considered joining a university air squadron as well?just as an additional thought, most of the recent reqruitment drives by airlines (brittania etc), have actually stated that a degree would be a significant advantage in the selection processes. I myself have been undertaking my PPL while studying at college and with my skills test in two weeks :D , understand the difficulties we are faced with while there is still such an abundance of fully trained pilots. Maybe spending the next three years undertaking a degree and gaining your PPL + IMC/TWIN/etc would be a good idea!?! anyway just a few thoughts and good luck!

-matt-

[Straightandlevel80kt]

Hi

Best of luck with whatever you decide. I wish I had your presence of mind at 17. I think you are perfectly placed to enable your flying career to take off.

I am nearly 28, and currently have a PPL, no job and a £5K debt. I was a 3 time applicant to BA, successful the third time round in... yep, you guessed it... the dreaded September 2001.

After several failed attempts to get part or full sponsorships, I recently ducked out of the £100K commitment of self-sponsorship because it just doesn't seem to be working for people at the other end if they can't afford a type rating and further flying on top. The banks were kind but wouldn't give me the safety margin I needed.

You will figure out what is right for you, but my only advice would be for goodness sake to do what I didn't do and watch your cashflow. Having been to University, decided not to go to the RAF and borrowed to fund my PPL, I was £10K in debt on credit cards before I was bailed out and started to learn the lesson. Not out of the woods yet, but had to be brutally honest with myself and cut my outgoings, which included not flying for now.

Just this small amount of debt has crippled me financially, despite having been in a well paid job, purely due to spending and living beyond my means. It's not what you earn that is important, it is what you don't spend.

Your biggest advantage is youth, as things are getting better, and you will be eligible for sponsorships for a few years. But get as many applications in as quickly as you can.

All the best

S&L80kt

[Langeveldt]

Hi all

Thanks for the replies!

Maybe a degree would be benificial, but doing that AND my whole flight training will just make the financial burden harder.. I dont need that, especially with no job at the end of it!
And ive heard University Air squadrons are pretty much geared towards a career at the RAF at the end of it.. And they arent keen on people sodding off to the airlines (just a thought)...

About the sponserships.. I was under the assumption that since september 11th, they just finished completely... Is this a real option again?? Maybe I should be looking into that... Would potential sponsers rather you had a degree?

Glad to see things should be picking up sooner or later..

Thanks for the feedback
Rich

[Wing_Bound_Vortex]

Hi Rich

Don't write off uni just yet, having just finished my 4 years of fun it's something i'll always remember, and i'd do again in a heartbeat if i was 17 and wondering what to do. Yes the debt aspect isn't great, but i worked throughout uni and still managed to come out with a 2.1 in engineering. That's going to stand me in good stead in whatever future career i might have if my flying doesn't take off ( excuse the pun ) in the end.
I also made some of the best friends i've ever had, enjoyed the talent and got drunk a hell of a lot, in short it was a great 4 years! :p

As for sponsorship, well check out the CTC thread in this forum and do your research on that, you have to be 19 to start but i'm sure if you got through the selection procedure they would be prepaired to wait for you to finish a degree or course at college. There will be a few others about i'm sure by the time you are ready to begin applying.

But remember, think about the wider aspects of your education and having a fall back if things don't turn out the way you want, aviation isn't the easiest career to get into and sustain!

Would sponsors rather you have a degree.....hard to say, it shows you've been dedicated to self study and you would prob be resonably smart and more mature candidate, but any more than that is debatable, give some degree courses people seem to take now. If it's relevant in a science/maths way then it will help for the ATPL's.

Then again there are plenty of commercial pilots out there who don't have degrees, so it show's what i know!! :}

Take all the advice you can, do your research well then sit down and have a long hard think about it. Only you can decide what you really want to do.

Good luck :ok:

WBV

[Langeveldt]

Thanks for the advice!!

Im definitely not thinking about ruling anything out! Im all to aware of how volatile the industry is, however I guess I could always go back to uni at a later age if flying didnt work out...

Its reassuring to know that there are pilots out there without degrees, I was under the assumption that in order to be attractive to employ you kind of had to go through uni...

Anyway I think getting my training underway first of all would be the best bet.. Then re-assessing things at each stage :D

[scroggs]

Langeveldt Don't write off UASs as only there to provide cannon fodder for the RAF; their remit is much wider than that. As a UAS CFI, I sent many of my students to BA, Britannia and others, and was very happy to do so.

However, you're right to be concerned about adding the debt of an fATPL to your student debt. Whether or not you decide that university is right for you, I would strongly suggest that you get yourself qualified to earn money as fast as possible. I don't care if it's IT, plumbing, pimping or whatever. OK, maybe not the last! The thing is, if you go for the modular route of training, you can continue earning while you are getting yourself qualified, with only a few, relatively short breaks. Integrated training doesn't allow this luxury, and requires that you have the money up front. For you, I would suggest, modular is the way to go, with or without a degree.

Scroggs

[b025053]

langeveldt

Where do i start:confused:

Well i was faced with exactly the same decision as you. Even the mom and dad bit. I went along with it, right up until results day and agreeing to go to Coventry to read Avionics Systems Engineering!:bored:

But damn i felt exactly as you did! Knew i didnt want it, knew it was a distraction and extra incurred potential cost on what faced me as a wannabe. (Id concluded that sponsorship was pie in the sky, and after 6 years ATC had concluded 12 yrs RAF wasnt me).

So i took a year out, ok ive not said yes or no! Things went well got a mundane van drivers job, was made a management offer with rediculous OTE rewards (still 18 yrs old) and said tera to uni.
The money was there, so was the logic. Did a UK intensive PPL. Yeah right, rain rain rain, flew about 26 hrs and back to work. Knew I had to go full time. Applied here, applied there. Found Pilot Assist, a distance learning style place. Applied, paid the £1500 joining fee, £400 medical, £8000 CDL. This was december 2002. In January 2003, they went bust, lost my £8000 and im still paying it back (£11000 with interest).

What i hadnt mentioned is prior to this, id bought and sold several cars, and then owned a very nice nearly new saab. Id given up the management job, "i was gonna be an airline pilot", had told all my deadwood uni student scum friends.

How smart am I? How clever did I look? Was out on my ear, with no job and a nice debt. Whilst my school mates came back from uni with tale a plenty, about girls, nights out, holidays etc etc. What had i done? worked 15 hours a day! For nothing.

Eventualy i sold the saab, got my old driving job back, working for an ass who used to work for me on my "year out peanut wages" and thats what im doing now. still in debt, still mightly pissed!

My mates are near graduation, all with lovely girlfriends and decent jobs lined up. There problem at the moment is which continent to spend there summer in before going to work on graduate "cofee making" trainee schemes!

Yes im bitter, but it was my choosing, and my mistakes and boy i know um. In heinseit maybe uni would have been better, but I dont recon Id have stayed. If you feel like that, dont go.

But look at getting a seroius job, and allow the flying to go from background to forground in good time. Dont rush it, find foundation and a fallback position.

Its a sob story I know, but my last four years have been wasted and bloody expensive, with no genuine life changing memories or accounts. I havent met my future wife and sure as hell know i wont meet her delivering parcels. I cant afford to go out drinking with my student mates, and im the one who works from 0500 to 1800 everyday.

So think very long and hard about this, its bloody important, it wont seem it, but in a few years you'll be saying i should've...... and thats bad.

Oh and, ive been to a few student guild venues with my mates, Liverpool, Leeds, Cardiff and Birmingham. Mate Uni looks like paradise.......

;)

Best of luck with what ever you decide, remember, you only live once, so live!:ok:

[GJB]

Tough one these days, given that you have to pay or borrow so much more for your degree.

Speaking if i was a school leaver today, I think I'd be more inclined to save/spend/borrow doing the CPL/IR instead of a degree. It took me 3 years to clear my feet of Uni debt, and that was with my fees beign paid and some maintenance grant too. If I had to pay the full whack for a degree then I don't think I'd be going today.

Follow your dream and do what is right for yourself.

[bazzaman96]

I'm going to give you the opposite advice. I'm waiting to leave uni so that I can start pursuing a career in aviation.

The industry is ridiculously oversubscribed, and fully qualified pilots are sitting around in alternative careers waiting for jobs to reappear, which they will do, in time.

However, the last thing you'd want is to get your exams and then not have a job for several years, and be in huge amounts of debt with no job to pay the money back (presuming you borrowed).

If you have a degree it will open up other job opportunities which may pay better, and may therefore give you more funds with which to support your aviation training. The only harm I can see it doing would be if you were on a very long degree, such as Medicine, and you didn't finish until your late twenties when employers may be looking to get the maximum possible lifetime service out of you.

Nobody knows what airlines are looking for, but a degree shows you can handle intense and further education, and have a grasp of study. That's not to say non-graduates don't, but in an oversubscribed industry, with little, if anything, to distinguish between outstanding candidates, everything counts.

Plus it's the best three years of your life and a great laugh!

[b025053]

Id partially agree with bazzaman,

Looking at the past few sponsorships (the few that have been going) I know they were awarded to graduates, and I believe from those succesful into the second stage of the current Britannia scheme they all have degrees. (I may be wrong there, but from the ones I know have been passed onto next week have!).

What is important, is what and where you study your degree. Degrees have become like A-levels, where after GCSEs everyone just does them, where before only the capable would go on to do A levels. To make your degree count outside of aviation, it needs to be in a good field and from a good institution. You can get on a degree course at a "new uni" with little or no A level points. And debt is a major issue, especially if your looking at self financing in this expensive game.

Of the people I know who went to uni (thats most of the folk I went to school with!), they mostly graduate this year or graduated last year. As it happens most will finish this year, as some were on four year courses and the others had to take there first twice! The ones who went to good institutions, Oxford, Imperial, Liverpool, Leeds all have jobs to go to now dependant on ther last exams (which are virtually in the bag). Those that did micky mouse courses at polys dont know what they are gonna do! They've had no interest from the top dogs and realy dont know what they want to do. They all owe £20K+. Now some have rich dadies and its not an issue, and they will not work unitil, if ever, theycan get a job that meets there requirements. Others are screwed allready and are looking at doing anything just to start repaying that debt. The ones that went to good institutins and read a quality couse and worked hard have made it. My good pal chris went to Imperial and did chemical engineering. He is going to work for Goldman and Sachs in the city when he finishes (i think thats finance or stocks :confused: ). Anyhow, he starts on a basic of £32k with an E class merc. Not bad for his first job! Oh and hehasnt even a driving licence I know he's gotta pay london prices but its still good. Considering he's no track record and never worked at all, not even in a burger bar to pay for lager money.

So go to uni if you think its the safety option, but make it count, otherwise it will be an expensive waste of time. Like aviation, the market is flooded with graduates. The only way to differentiate between them is by what and where they studied. The days of just having a degree and that being your ticket to utopia are gone. And in most places a Desmond or anything worse isnt worth having.:\

[Langeveldt]

Thanks for the advice.. There is certainly a lot to think about :O

I think what feels right is to get a pretty serious job (whatever goes I guess for someone without a degree, right?) when I leave school.. I am already earning money now as well.. and use that to ease the money burden and do modular flight training at 18+... Hopefully by the time that happens the industry will be in an upturn.. who knows tho..

Oh im in line to be a prefect at college, so I guess that helps no?