Imasuen1

Hello all, I am new on this thread and i must really give kudos to everyone keeping the threads alive. I have a very delicate question here and would need serious advice.
So i currently living in the US and married to my spouse who is a Us citizen, currently i am awaiting my green card and at the same time, planing on starting flight training in a year. But my Majore problem is finance. Is it possible to obtain a loan to go from hero to zero? I do not have any flight experience and i recently caught the flying bug atfer several years of "giving up" on the dream.. i understand a degree is important if the end goal is a major. What is the best route to that goal?
1) Get a 4yr college degree in Nursing and work for a couple of years to be able to save up some money and qualify for good loans for flight traning?
2) obtain a loan in a year time and start flight school??

Also is it possible to obtain loan to pay for all of training from zero hours to CFII and MEI?? How realistic is this? Will appreciate your replies thank you.

TiredSoul

1. How old are you
2. Does your wife have stable employment?
You’ll be financially dependent on your wife for 2-3 years.
3. Loans is what hot this country into trouble at every economic down turn.
4. Your flight training will cost $65-$70k
Which is equal to a sizeanle downpayment on a house or two very nice cars.

Imasuen1

1)23
2) She has a stable Job but will not be making any financial contribution towards my flight training.
What are the chances of obtaining a loan to cover the entire cost of fligjt training?

rickair7777

It depends on her income (or the income/net worth of any other potential co-signers).

Before 2008 it was very common for aspiring pilots to get large unsecured loans to cover flight training. But some schools tended to go BK, wiping out the money, and then when they economy crashed many pilots got stuck unemployed, or employed in low-paying flying jobs for many years and were not able to reliably repay their loans.

The standard now appears to be that flight training loans must be secured by a co-signer (maybe your wife if she makes enough, or if there's collateral such a house).

Since you also need a degree you could look at one of the aviation universities which qualify for RATP. They are expensive, but you *might* be able to get a traditional unsecured student loan for that (you'd have to research it, probably by contacting the universities).

155mm

Imasuen1.

Does that mean you want to sue someone?

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?

Elevation

Here’s an invitation for folks to discuss a pathway rarely considered: Buy a plane

For about $20000 you can get a used, 2-seat trainer which you can fly for your private pilot certificate, instrument rating and most of your commercial pilot certificate. Hourly costs to fly for you would be about $70/hour plus $30/hour for an instructor. Annually, you’d pay an additional $3000 for insurance, maintenance, etc.

Over the course of two years and about $25000 in variable cost you would get your certificates and first 250hrs. You’d rent a Piper Arrow or Cessna Cutlass to get your complex experience prior to your commercial pilot certificate and do something similar for your multi-engine rating. Figure about $10000 for these.

Sell the plane when you are done or nearly done with your commercial pilot certificate. To keep costs down it’s important you move quickly or you keep paying for annual maintenance, insurance, etc.

Elevation

One final thing:

It’s never too early to start networking. I was terrible at this. Between working odd jobs to pay for flying and going to class for my degrees, I pretty much showed up to fly and went home. I always thought networking meant making friends of convenience and generally being a dishonest, used-car-salesman type.

Nothing could be farther from the truth! Hanging out at airports and making friend who like to talk about saxophones and antique planes is really cool! Just knowing folks’ names, saying hello does wonders.

Finally, as you peruse this site, you’ll see that we frequently express the darker sides of our character from time to time. Similar things happen in airport lounges. Resist the urge to gossip. From the most selfish perspective, strangers have saved my bacon out of the blue. I have done the same for others. I imagine that if I was frequently trash-talking folks many of those benevolent strangers wouldn’t have been there for me. It took decades for me to notice all the folks that were quietly pulling for me without me even knowing. I’d hate to poo on their friends.

rickair7777

I knew folks who did this back in the day to get ME time (you needed at least 300 ME to get a regional or more likely a 135 job).

There's a very deep potential downside... if you have an unexpected major MX problem, you can lose tens of thousands at the drop of a hat. And you would need to cough up the cash before you could do anything at all with the plane (other than sell it at a very deep discount).

Some such expenses would increase the resale value of the plane proportionally (ie new motor), others would not (ie surprise AD, structural problem).

I would consider that carefully, worst case do you have the cash to fix the plane if needed? Also research the type of plane to make sure you understand the potential MX exposure.

It was really scary for the guys building twin time... two motors to break, and none of the were much below TBO in that price range. I recall they were VERY happy the day they sold their planes.

Also... $20K is really going to be pushing it for an IFR certified plane, the motor of such a plane would be over TBO for sure. Worth noting that you don't NEED to rebuild the motor at TBO, but it's a good threshold to really evaluate what you're doing, which is hard to do unless you know the history of the plane, ie flight school trainer vs. little old lady who only did XCs on Sunday...

dera

There are deals out there. I paid $20k for a /G 150 with a 5 month old overhaul.