Tips for training

[Seanlister1]

Hello everyone,

Just wondering what tips you've all got for funding flight training, as with most people on here the dream is to become a commercial pilot but the cost is monumental, I'm not well off nor do I have parents that are willing to remortgage property for my training unlike the lucky few. One of the only viable methods I have found is to go modular but I was wondering if there's any other tips out there.

Thanks in advance
Sean

[TryingToAvoidCBs]

"tips you've all got for funding flight training"

Well if you're not having much luck with the lottery, perhaps get a job?

[nord121]

Modular route with a job. When you can take your holidays you have built up to go somewhere cheaper to fly. Be disciplined with yourself and money, and if you need too then you can always take a loan out. I got a graduate loan at 3.3% for part of my training and it was either that or wait another year.

I saw some great advice on here a while back that went something like this ‘ask yourself not how long do I need to save up- rather how many years can I be without the wages you would be earning at the end’. In short, the short term debt is worth it for the long term pay off and the sooner you get to that pay off.

And whatever you do, don’t let anyone talk you into intergrated!

[Nurse2Pilot]

If you don't own property, if your parents won't or can't offer their house for a remortgage, if you don't have upwards of £50K savings, if you aren't female or ex-military, then I think the options are really very few.

Get a job, work like mad, put personal life on hold (no wife or kids for now!), and hopefully save up for training. There are some loans available but they're for later on in the training process AFAIK. For example, the Professional and Career Development Loans seems to be only available at CPL stage onwards, so that's about half of the cost of training already sunk into PPL and hour-building. I would love to be wrong about this but doesn't seem to be the case....

[Seanlister1]

I do have a job, I am a baggage handler currently, the money isn't great but it's still money regardless. The only dependencies I really have is my car which is finance payments, insurance etc and my phone bill as I still live with my parents. I could probably afford £200 - £300 a month to go towards training, that could be stretched but off the top of my head that's what I know would be a comfortable amount of money to dedicate towards training.

[Nurse2Pilot]

£300 per month is a good start, but probably a bit on the low end? PPL is anywhere from £8K to £12K and a 0-fATPL from a good and reputable school can cost a minimum of £50K. At £300 per month, that's just over 166 months or 13 year's worth of saving. At £500 per month, that'll still be at least 100 months or just over 8 years. You could probably save up half and take out a loan on the other half, but even at £500 per month, that's still at least 4 years of saving.

Not saying this to put out your fire; I'm looking at the exact same thing as well and I have the added responsibility of a family, a few £££ in loans, and in my mid-30s. I'm just saying that this is the harsh truth and if anyone out there has an answer, I'd love to know it! At the moment, I'm signing up with a few other nursing agencies to get more work and be able to save more and more each month.

[Seanlister1]

I should've also mentioned that I am only 19, when I see the cost of the training though I panic and forget how long a year actually is.

[Nurse2Pilot]

At least age/time is on your side!

forget how long a year actually is.What do you mean?

[Chris the Robot]

You want a job in the meantime which will eanble you to save yet will provide you with useful life experience for the airline interview. If I was 18 again, I'd look closely at becoming a railway signaller. You get paid over 75% of your final salary during training (approx 1 year) so if you're in a complex signal box you're looking at over £30k year before you're even productive. Lots of overtime opportunities once you're qualified you should be able to smash a grand a month into a savings account even if you're living away from home.. It's a very good career on it's own, the the smaller boxes are facing redundancies due to everything being moved to the ROCs.

The railway is generally good with salaries and overtime, a platform dislatcher can make well north of £30k with a bit of overtime. The Merchant Navy is good too, minimal living expenses, relatively little tax once you're qualified and plenty of time to study. Sales careers can be good earners if that's something you're good at (I'm not), I do think you need to be a certain "type" to succeed in sales.

Bear in mind, shift work and safety critical jobs are both relevant to the pilot role, if you've had an interesting job prior to pilot training, it does make you a more interesting candidate at interview.

[Ronaldsway Radar]

Sean

Unfortunately you're going to have to find out exactly how determined you are by the sounds of it!

I'm from a very similar background. A very small amount of inheritance (not even close to covering the PPL course) but otherwise I took my first flying lesson at 15. I'm now 30 and can finally afford my CPL ME IR. Every course since then has been paid through employment savings, company share plan scheme and a personal bank loan for CPL MEIR. Don't even mention the APS MCC :( ... I'll cross that bridge when I come to it!

Lots of missed parties, angry girlfriends who don't understand why I can't spend time/money going away twice a year, currently living back at home to save the extra few £££ for the final push, and I've had a budget calculator moderating my spending for the past 8 years. Believe me, it has not been fun at times and if you follow this route you will have to sacrifice an awful lot. But if it's the only way, then so be it.

My advice would be plan and research everything thoroughly, keep a very good current and future budget (Excel works for me), do your research and oddly (speaking from experience here), don't expect any good luck. Plan for worst case scenario. If some good luck does come your way, it'll come as a pleasant surprise :)

Best of luck - just keep focusing on that first commercial job, no matter how far away it might seem.

[nord121]

You want a job in the meantime which will eanble you to save yet will provide you with useful life experience for the airline interview. If I was 18 again, I'd look closely at becoming a railway signaller. You get paid over 75% of your final salary during training (approx 1 year) so if you're in a complex signal box you're looking at over £30k year before you're even productive. Lots of overtime opportunities once you're qualified you should be able to smash a grand a month into a savings account even if you're living away from home.. It's a very good career on it's own, the the smaller boxes are facing redundancies due to everything being moved to the ROCs.

The railway is generally good with salaries and overtime, a platform dislatcher can make well north of £30k with a bit of overtime. The Merchant Navy is good too, minimal living expenses, relatively little tax once you're qualified and plenty of time to study. Sales careers can be good earners if that's something you're good at (I'm not), I do think you need to be a certain "type" to succeed in sales.

Bear in mind, shift work and safety critical jobs are both relevant to the pilot role, if you've had an interesting job prior to pilot training, it does make you a more interesting candidate at interview.

+1 for the merchant navy. This is what I’m currently doing, however it took me three years to train as a 3rd officer. However it now enables me to save up a shed load of money, train in my 6 months off a year and most of the teaching is distance learning so I can do it onboard.

Oh and every merchant navy officer cadetship is free! So instead of saving for 20 years... get a cadetship for three, save and train for 3 and come out debt free!

Nord.

[rudestuff]

There are 4 main ways to get money: Beg, Borrow, Steal, Earn.
I chose borrow and earn.
Including an MCC/JOC, you'll need £40k although it can be done for less.

[jamesgrainge]

Get your HGV licence, I was working 6 on 3 off driving Class 1 and able to put away well over a thousand a month. Money is getting better and if you're young and single it's easy to save. I'm going from getting my Class 2 to completed my training within three years, all being well.

Hard work but easily manageable. Everything takes longer and costs more than you work out but stick at it.

[chockablock]

Get your HGV licence, I was working 6 on 3 off driving Class 1 and able to put away well over a thousand a month. Money is getting better and if you're young and single it's easy to save. I'm going from getting my Class 2 to completed my training within three years, all being well.

Hard work but easily manageable. Everything takes longer and costs more than you work out but stick at it.

I'm 31, currently 27 hours in to my PPL and working as an Uber driver to pay for the training but the money isn't the best and I've been giving some serious consideration to your advice. I've requested a provisional application pack.

I've also been applying to companies at airports to get some work experience and have been invited for an interview for a job cleaning aircraft during turnarounds.

I'm thinking work experience will help boost my CV when the time comes to apply to airlines and once my foot is in the door I can apply for better internal jobs. Or I could gain another driving license which allow me to earn more money and pay off training faster. The HGV license also provides a safety net should something unforeseeable occur.

Will a stint as a Dispatch Agent help me in the long run during training or applying for jobs? Or should I just aim to get as much cash in ASAP?

Any insight from those who have been there and done that is greatly appreciated.

[planesandthings]

Make sure you apply for all the flying scholarships you can get. That can save you a good £10,000 and put a fantastic reference on your CV. Honourable Company of Air Pilots, Air League, Royal Aero Club trust and many more provide these scholarships for your age bracket, the air league launch theirs next week, they are competitive but provided you've got the drive to do this, it'll show and you'll get a scholarship. Don't play off Gliding Scholarships either, though it may not seem at all related to a commercial career, with some time in gliders you may end up being able to get some free hour building like myself and friends have by qualifying to tow gliders at weekends/weekdays. A mate of mine did 300 hours for nothing whilst being paid for food and living, but you must have gliding experience for this opportunity! This also included free tailwheel training and complex types! You've got to be in it to win it. And ultimately once you get to the flight deck you'll have a bigger sense of achievement than those who got the same piece of paper than you with someone else's money.

Come to Pilot Careers Live trade show if you're not already, it's at Heathrow in two weeks time, I'll be on the Wings Alliance Stand.

Planesandthings

[Seanlister1]

Terribly sorry for not replying, I conveniently don't get notified whenever there's a reply, thank you so much each an everyone one or you for your feedback and advice. Hearing that some don't start the bulk of their training has really put my mind at ease as I was worrying about not being able to do the training quick enough if that makes any sense.

Thank you all
Sean