Loans for funding flying training.

[Tonic Please]

Loans for non-home owners?!

I'm 21, PPL 90h. Canadian. Will be residing in Canada asap.

I teach Jazz Piano fulltime, (little french too), and am currently saving the money (about £15K) to take out to Canada and get the CPL, Multi, Float and Instrument.

However, my daily routines are being somewhat (silently) jeapordised because of IMPATIENCE. I know I have only just turned 21, but soon I'll be 24! I feel, rightly or wrongly, that I am running out of time. This is naive, yet that doesn't stop me wanting to just get a loan with interest, and paying it back in time.

I went to HSBC, can't help. Said the only loan I could have was Professional Study Loan and aviation wasn't on the list. Halifax, can't help. Complained that because I buggered off for 8 months to France, and have come back asking for money, it's not how they operate. He did say that some place would be prepared but the interest was be high. That got me thinking.

If I need £13k, and I got a loan of £16k, I'd leave the extra £3k seperate so that it could be used to pay back the monthly bill, therefore not directly affecting me. I'll always have Jazz and French on my side as income and employment, and I also have a website which will offer online jazz/blues lessons (not allowed to advertise it here im afraid), so thats picking up and sure to be a good money earner. I therefore am in the mindframe of......

Get the heavy interest loan more than I need, leave couple of grand aside to pay the loan back so I am not being affected, keep putting income from teaching/website into account to leave me alone for longer and longer, get to Canada ASAP, do the biz...and see what's happening.

I'm fortunate moreso than some as I have the income from various sources so it's not a "give up career take a plunge and pray" situation. Perhaps some of you would be kind enough as to provide some feedback.

Regards, Dan.

[d70f6v]

Loans for non-home owners?!

Hi there, I was wondering if any others who were in a similar non-home owning situation would be able to shed light on how to get the cash together to do an ATPL? With OAT as I undertand it its a case of getting the position then HSBC will give you the loan?
How's about the modular course, how many modules are there and how much (roughly) would each cost?
Thanx, I've just started investigating the money aspect and it's pretty shocking to say the least!

[Nimbus5]

Most Expensive Modular Course

HSBC will loan up to £25K unsecured if you have good credit. You can use it for Modular or Integrated courses. They also go as high as £50K for Integrated courses and believe it or not as high as £74K for CTC Wings, which has got to be the most expensive Modular course anywhere. Yeah there is a job offer attached and that's why the bank loans so much, but why does it cost so much for a Modular course? The bank loans £60K for CTC course plus £10K for expenses, plus £4K for the PPL if you don't alreday have it.

[mungo_55]

The last I heard (a few months back) was that the HSBC professional studies loan was no longer being offered for commercial pilot training. Do you know if they have re-instated it, or has it been re-instated only for use with certain training schools ?

thanks

Mungo

[geordiejet]

I've not looked in to it in depth, but i believe the only give it to OAT students from now on.

[just_go_to]

My experience has shown that Nimbus5 is correct-

A month ago I spoke to HSBC and they are only prepared to loan up to £25k on an unsecured basis for an OAT course. They will lend up to £50k with a secured loan.

These type of loans are not just available to Oxford students. Other integrated schools are applicable too.

I suggest you have a chat with HSBC so that you can discuss your individual circumstances. You'll also get to see if the situation has changed in the last month.

Good luck.

[d70f6v]

Thanks all, very informative. My credit's fine but I've no house to secure it against (cue parents??!!). I'll talk to the bank!

[BOZZATO]

Hi there Chaps!

As a current HSBC employee, i can categorically say without a shadow of a doubt that we are still offering the professional studies loan, but only in conjunction with OAT. Each case is determined upon it's merits, but we will lend up to 25k unsecured and 50k max secured. A while back we did lend all course fee's but the bank decided to change this. Although they will lend an extra £500 to cover charges!

I am in the process of drawing down my funds so that i can commence at OAT on their APP260 course.

If you are interested in training with Flight Training Europe down in Jerez, i believe they have a close relationship with a Spanish bank, who will lend all course fees. I presume that the Spanish bank would be slightly cheaper due to their interest rates?? I am completely sure of all the details, if your looking to take this route then i would recommend contacting Mary Jo or Carmen down at FTE!

If you need any further details about HSBC's professional studies loan, pm me and i'kll give you the contact details for the chap who deals with them. His name is Mark Lineham. All applications must go through the Oxford Cornmarket street branch as no other branch is permitted to deal with these loans any more.

All the best!

Bozzato

[d70f6v]

Cheers

Hi Bozzato, your PM's are full so I'll have to go public. Thanks for the reply, very informative. I'm not a home owner so 25K would be the limit. My Dad's a Captain just retired from BA and he's able to supply 10k. So that's 35. How much is the integrated course at Oxford? Looking at Cabair's scheme it's 50k and I'm guessing that Oxford's is slightly more....

Also, how difficult are the entry tests at Oxford? Again, I tried to look at the Cabair examples but the webpage didn't seem to work. I'm guessing that with a good deal of swatting I could pass the Maths/Physics stuff. Are there "unpreparables" too i.e. psychometric tests etc? Any idea of how many who take it pass? And any idea if they let you retry until you get in??!!

[BOZZATO]

Hi there!

The cost of the OAT APP is £63500, that's covers all course fees, CAA exam fees and accommodation in Scotsdale. It also covers first attempt for all exams as well as your uniform and travel costs to the USA! Accommodation in the UK is additional but is approximately £150 pw self catering.

The tests are very straight forward and the only thing i recommend is that you be yourself and enjoy it! The maths and physics aren't super difficult either. If your confident with your GCSE maths and physics you should be fine! Once you've completed the assessment you will be given a full de brief. If you don't meet the grade you can retry but after a specific period of time, it does vary, but i would say it would be at least 6 months! The group exercises are good fun and the simulator assessment is relatively straight forward!

You say your father is an ex BA pilot? You should be fine, it's in your blood!!

I'm not sure about the pass/fail rate, although i remember speaking to one of the advisors way back in August and they said it's difficult to say. They've had groups of people fail and then again they've had groups pass!

Just remember the 7 p's - piss poor preparation produces piss poor performance!

If i can pass the assessment than anyone can!!!

I wish you the very best!

I've cleared my inbox so if you've got anymore questions just drop me a line

Regards

James

[just_go_to]

Originally Posted by BOZZATO

Hi there Chaps!
As a current HSBC employee, i can categorically say without a shadow of a doubt that we are still offering the professional studies loan, but only in conjunction with OAT............applications must go through the Oxford Cornmarket street branch as no other branch is permitted to deal with these loans any more.
Bozzato

Cabair (CCAT) in conjunction with Milton Keynes HSBC offer these loans too.

[Fair_Weather_Flyer]

You can get some pretty good low rate deals on credit cards. If you can get several of them you may well be able to raise the cash. Not an ideal way of borrowing but if needs must. As a word of warning. Make sure that you are also able to obtain more funds in case your costs are higher than anticipated; they will be!

[High Wing Drifter]

For UK people, dont forget the govt sponsored CDL:

http://www.lifelonglearning.dfes.gov.uk/cdl/

[Elixir]

I went to HSBC about 16 months ago now with a thorough business plan asking to borrow a bit more than their max £50k and explaining how I would be able to pay this back even if not successful in getting a job. They offered me £56k in the end - so they do look at each case on its individual merits and can go higher than £50k.

[scroggs]

Originally Posted by Fair_Weather_Flyer

You can get some pretty good low rate deals on credit cards. If you can get several of them you may well be able to raise the cash. Not an ideal way of borrowing but if needs must. As a word of warning. Make sure that you are also able to obtain more funds in case your costs are higher than anticipated; they will be!

NO! NO! NO! Credit cards are emphatically not the way to go. Credit cards may offer attractive initial interest rates - some at 0% for the intial three or six-month period - but thereafter they return to the (variable) standard interest rate. Most are around 16%, some as much as 27%!! On a loan of £50,000, that's interest payments of £13,500 a year! Even at 12% (about the cheapest you'll get), you're talking £6,000 a year. If the card requires the standard minimum of 5% of the outstanding debt per month, you're looking at monthly credit card payments of £2,500, much of which will be interest. If you can afford that, you can probably negotiate a deal for staged payments to your FTO.

Stay away from credit cards other than as an instrument to protect your investment - in UK, all purchases over £100 by credit card are protected by the credit card issuer.

Scroggs

[d70f6v]

Thanks for the advice all, appreciated. It seems to be a case of speaking to HSBC it would seem as they are apparently one of the few banks willing to let people persue their dreams!

I've considered going to the US to train too, there seem to be plenty of schools (recommended on Pprune) willing to train for around the 35k mark. At the risk of irritating those who've bigger commitments than myself (no wife, kids, house etc) could I ask why more people don't do this? Am I missing something? How easy would it be to get a bank loan either in the US (as a non-national) or one that could be used in the US (i.e. from a UK bank)? How compatible are the US ATPL equivalents and the European versions? This may be answered in another thread so apologies in advance, without the search facility it's a little hard to find.

Thanks again, pretty sure flying is in the blood and much to my mother's distaste I think it's inheritable.

[Charlie Zulu]

To obtain an FAA ATPL you require 1500 hours so that will mean working as a flight instructor, which also means you'll need the rights to work in the United States.

However if you obtain an FAA CPL/IR, this can be converted to the JAA CPL/IR. However it will still cost you a lot of money.

Upon your return to the UK, the process to go through to convert the FAA CPL/IR to the JAA CPL/IR is as follows:

1) Undertake the JAA ATPL Theoretical course and pass ALL 14 exams.

2) JAA CPL Skills Test which will require training as determined by the head of training at the FTO.

3) A 15 hour JAA IR course with a JAA IR Skills Test at the end. However if you have minimum hours under the FAA system then you will find it hard going passing in the minimum 15 hour course.

If you have an FAA ATP with 1500 hours or more then you'll be exempt from the brush up courses if distance learning for the ATPL's. However if you have a lot of multi crew time (so that'll mean getting a job on the basis of your FAA ATP in the first instance) then there are various other options that you'll gain, but you'll still need to do all or some of the JAA ATPL examinations.

I'm going through the conversion process at the moment. Half way through the JAA ATPL exams. The conversion process, including the JAA CPL/IR and MCC is going to cost me about £15,000 on TOP of what I have already spent on the FAA courses.

[d70f6v]

OK, so sounds like it's getting close to simply doing it in the UK then! Really was too good to be true!

[Leezyjet]

Try www.northernrock.co.uk.

or

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/

I compared the loans on money supermarket and Northern Rock was the best at the time I took it out. You should be able to get £25k unsecured with no probs providing you have a good credit rating.

With carefully managed costs, you should be able to do the lot for not much more which you could fund from working part time or save up before hand.

[Lord Flasheart]

I believe BBVA lend the full course costs for Flight Training Europe students and their interests rates are somewhat lower which makes quite a difference when you're talking about 65k!

You could probably save around 20k going modular however. I'm not going to recomend one over the other as everyone is different. All i will say is be aware that OAT, CABAIR and FTE aren't the only good schools offering UK CPL/IR training. Sadly many great modular schools get over looked.

Best of luck with whatever you decide.

P.S. I didn't read all the posts contained here about FAA liciencing but from my very limited knowledge don't bother. I'd be very surprised if you save any money doing it that way.