How do you guys do it?

[Diesel Pilot]

G'day guys

After many months of lurking around pprune i've decided to join and become part of this (interesting) community!

I'm just curious how you guys are funding or have funded your flight training, how long it took etc to reach each stage of your training?

I'm a tradesman and work full time as a diesel fitter in Perth. I am funding all of my training privately off my own back without a bank loan. I'm working toward my CPL but at this stage am only 8 hours into my ab-inito training for my GPFT. I fly one hour per week at the moment as I can only afford set aside $500 per week towards flying. I have planned out the various costs involved against the 150 hour syllabus provided by my flight school and have structured a plan which puts me about 2.5 years away from my CPL, night rating, CSU & retract.

I'd be interested to hear how you guys are doing it and what your goals are so please feel free to share your stories.

Cheers

[taff_lightning]

Worked my way through my CPL training (whilst continuing to work full time) and found it very helpful to save up for a stage then go to it. Maybe even take a bit of leave. This way you can get away from some of the currency issues that you may incur when training in dribs and drabs :ugh:. Especially in the beginning stages of your training I'd say that continuity is everything. Might even find it saves you a bit of cash!

[Diesel Pilot]

Hey, thanks for the reply!

Great to hear someone else's story. So how long did it take you to complete your CPL training whilst you were working full time, did you approach all of your training in this way? Also it'd be interesting to hear how much per hour you paid for your training in the UK.

In an ideal world I'd like to fly more regularly especially during this initial phase of learning, but it's not financially viable for me unless I take out a huge loan :ugh:

I get good feedback from my instructor who says i'm ahead of where I need to be in terms of ability and knowledge, which I put down to studying a LOT between flights and running over manouvers I've already covered. But still I would agree that more regular flying would be beneficial and save me a lot of time!

Cheers :ok:

[E&H]

Well I started learning to fly on Groote Eylandt...a group of us hired a plane from Gove Aero club...after 6 months and 13 hours I went solo...not the best way to do it so I saved up my pennies and every six months when they let me out I went down to the sunnie coast and did steep turns over Noosa Heads and spotted for white pointers while I did my licence. After 18 months I had my PPL. Then won a job (bridgeworks) and spent 94 days working...one stint was six weeks straight...my partner would take half of the crew and have smoko/lunch etc while I kept working with the other half of the crew...then we would go for smoko when they came back...

At the end I came out with about $40K so I took 12 months off and completed my CPL (a bit cheaper back then...still all relative I suppose)...then went bush...arrived at the 3 ways in the NT flipped a coin and went south to Alice Springs...Hangar rat for about 3 months before doing scenics around ayers rock and olgas...

25 years later and now working in PNG...F100s - Dash 8s

Easy once you know how!!! Just don't ask me to do it again...when I think about it now I'm glad I was young and naive...helps if you believe in yourself enough to back yourself

Good luck

p.s the mistakes I made in my career were all mine...but it's been one hell of a journey...even chucked in flying a few years ago for a return to the tools and loved every minute of that too...