Originally Posted by
rudestuff
I'm struggling to understand your motivation to be honest. You say you're a year or two away from finishing secondary school, which would make you 16. You say you want to be a pilot but for some strange reason not until after you're 30. Even starting until 18 you could be applying for airline jobs aged 21 if you do thingsin the right order. If Pilot is actually your stated career goal, then every other job only exists to support that goal. Every year you delay will cost you £250,000 at a minimum (based on your end of career salary)
£25,000 is nothing in comparison. You're clearly not understanding my suggestion, so I'll try to elaborate: The most important attribute a pilot can have is perseverance. If you don't have a long term plan and stick to it you will fail. It's no different in principle from becoming a body builder or a marathon runner. My advice to my younger self is this: Get a Mon-Fri job, the higher paying the better, but not one that needs excessive training or qualifications. If it's in an airline or on an airfield so much the better. Then get a weekend job and/or deliver pizza in the evenings. Live with your parents and save 90% of what you make. Get a mobile contact and a few credit cards. Spend and pay them back in full. Take out a loan for £500 and pay it back over 6 months. Then get another loan for £1000 and do the same. One you've got £10,000 you can go somewhere sunny for a 4 week PPL (or 2 blocks of 2 weeks) After 2 years you'll have a PPL, £15,000 and a great credit record. And trust me, when it comes to borrowing money, you will have no problems once you understand what a 'credit search window' is! As for paying it off - that's no different from saving up. Plus you'll have 2 jobs and no rent. You have to want it.
If you eat, sleep and breathe in order to facilitate becoming a pilot then you'll be in the RHS in 3 years. Or you can just dream.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. When I finish school I will be 17 and then I will pursue higher education in uni in something non-aviation related so I can have a secure stable source of income to fund my training and as a plan B if aviation doesn't work out. I am also committed to doing this with as little debt as possible simply because if I finish my ATPLs with 25k of loans (plus interest!) and cannot find a good paying job then I will not be able to pay it back (even if I do it will be a setback when it comes to mortgaging a property as I have additional loan repayments to make). Doing some quick maths:
- 4 years (if I'm doing a M) of uni brings me to 21 at graduation.
- Best-case scenario of a £50k p.a. job - let's say £45k after tax - I can live 'frugally' on £25k and invest/save the £20k left over. (£50k per annum if I work 2 jobs doesn't seem unreasonable depending on the field)
- 20k for 3 years (24-25 years old now) makes 60k on the upper end of a modular course (which let's face it will probably be on the lower end when I start training)
- Train modularly non-stop for 1.5 years (which brings me to 26-27)
- Fly for regionals/sightseeing tours/skydiving/banner towing/literally whatever for 2 or 3 years then graduate to an Airbus.
So as you can see my long-term plan (which you heavily suggested I stick to) will see me in the RHS of a Bus at best case maybe at 27 if I can get an airline job right after finishing training (not impossible if I pick my flight school right) and maybe 35 if it drags on. However your suggestion for me is to leave school, take out bigger and bigger loans to up my credit score until I can pay for a PPL and then...what? As mentioned above, no matter how well I do in my ATPL exams, airlines will be looking for
real-world experience (which is something that uni and a good job can get me). You make it seem like for some strange and unknown reason I'm intentionally putting off being a pilot until my middle years which is just untrue, every step in the plan above is one step closer to a seat in the cockpit. As I said already my family is not all that well endowed and there is absolutely no way I could have my mum sponsor me through modular right after I leave school (especially because she's just a few years away from repaying the mortgage and I'm not about to ask her to put the house down to fund me). And to add, if I had put in my top post that I plan to become a fully fledged pilot at 20 years old, I guarantee you that you would have tsked and thought "wow, that boy is naive". Motivation and perseverance are important but so is thinking realistically.