Originally Posted by Elevation

This is a great question to ask before you begin flight training! In addition to what others are suggesting, there are many pathways to get to your certificates which come with different financial and practical costs. After 20 years, flying still is a something I’m passionate about. I still remember the way it affected fundamental parts of who I was when I started. Those things were wonderful, but terrible for financial decision making.

As you get ready to make some big financial decisions, it’s really important you separate yourself from your emotions as much as you can.

You can go from zero to a pilot capable of earning income in multi-engine airplanes (commercial, multi, Instrument) today for costs ranging from as little as $35000 to as much as $250000. That’s almost an order of magnitude in variability when it comes to cost!!!

Some of the trade offs you make have to do with reliability of training, speed of progression, etc. v. total cost and debt load as you start your career. Quality of training matters, but washes out in the long run. The professional aviator you will become depends much more on your personal habits and your first couple jobs than anything else. Along these lines, the first job you get is by far the most difficult one to break into.

20 years ago, taking the path lowest cost (as I did) saved me a lot of money, but I do think that I, as a guy who learned on his own at a small airport, was seen as an unknown quantity while graduates of specific schools were more employable. I did get that first job, though. Once that happened my career was up and chugging along, and I was entirely debt free with a bachelor’s degree, my certificates and working towards a master’s.

So some big-picture decisions for you and your wife to think about would be:

1.) How fast do you want to be done with training?
2.) What is a debt load that is sustainable?
3.) What sort of sacrfices will she have to make to support you in this?
4.) When this career turns bad, it goes bad almost overnight. Imagine yourselves on your worst day. Imagine that all these sacrifices have been made and there’s no job, no prospect of a job without further sacrifice (moving, living separately, etc.). What then? What are the outside limits of what you two are willing to put up with to make this happen?