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Old 19th Mar 2019, 13:45
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Ronaldsway Radar
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: IOM
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From personal experience, I have a few suggestions for you.

1. Consider very carefully whether you would want to put the financial pressure of funding your training onto your parents. Would they be able to cope if something went wrong and you couldn't complete training, meaning they have to potentially re-mortgage houses etc.? Unless you have thought through every possible outcome I would avoid this.
2. Get yourself into a well-paid career and save every penny. Some great ideas above already. However even the average office job will give you the opportunity to work and save enough over several years. Yes, several years! It may take a while, but after starting saving when I was 21 I am now 30 and have just been able to fund my CPL, MEIR etc.
3. Take the modular route. This will save you thousands of pounds and quite frankly be a great life experience. I have had a great time training over the past few years. My net spend will be around the £60k mark by the time I am finished, if not slightly over due to the APS MCC requirement.
4. If you're good with computers & Excel, set up a budget calculator and plan out every expense and how much you expect to be able to put aside until you reach £60k saved. This will mean that, like me, holidays become one of the first things that get cut. Nights out / trips are budgeted for but keep these within limits - I would recommend keeping a good social life though as all work and no play is not great for the mental psyche :o)
5. If you do need to borrow money to fund the courses, consider a personal (unsecured) bank loan. After considering all the options I was able to obtain a loan for £24,500 over seven years with a very reasonable APR %. Factor your repayments into your budget calculator to make sure you can afford the repayments if you need to return to a back up career path.
6. Don't scrimp on your flying courses. Do not select the cheapest course provider. Do your research, visit schools, speak to students (past and present) and find out exactly what kind of service you are paying for. PPRuNe has plenty of recommendations in terms of good modular schools in the UK and abroad.
7. This route will not be easy, and it will take a while to achieve. However, if you can show you are motivated enough to commit to this route and have met all the challenges along the way, then your desire to succeed should shine through in the airline interview stage. Don't give up on it.
8. Lastly, medicals. The single most horrifying and nerve-wracking part of the whole process! If you can't hold and maintain a Class 1 licence, there's no point going any further. Read up on the medical requirements and make sure you can meet them. The UK Civil Aviation Authority website is a good place to read up on medical requirements.

Hopefully this helps in some way. Good luck!
Ronaldsway Radar is offline