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Questions about Flight schools

Old 10-09-2018, 10:01 PM
  #1  
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Default Questions about Flight schools

Currently where I am at now, is in the preparation stages of wanting to become a commercial pilot. This is an idea I have kicked around for a few years now (even talked to some flight schools), however I went in another career direction. Unfortunately, I've grown to hate the career I have now, and can absolutely not see myself doing it for the rest of my life, let alone another year. When it comes to my background, I have a Bachelors degree and prior military experience (I still have a year left of my GI Bill). My reasoning for this post is to see if anyone could recommend what would be the most efficient direction to go in because I do have some GI Bill left, and a degree (so I assume I don't need to go through a universities program). I know anything flight related isn't cheap, however I would like to stay away from going 100K dollars in debt. Would a school like Embry Riddle allow me to complete just a flight school, without obtaining a degree? Am I forced to go to a school like ATP? Are there better alternatives? I have googled and researched some already, however that only gets you so far, and I feel like there would be more intelligent input from people with experience. I also don't know how much 1 year of GI Bill would actually cover when it came to a flight school? Anyways thanks for any info you can give me, and thanks again everyone.
danhernandez533 is offline  
Old 10-09-2018, 10:53 PM
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Embry Riddle is not the place you want to go for flight training. It's expensive.
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Old 10-10-2018, 05:24 AM
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Check out Liberty University if you're trying to get just your flight ratings with your GI Bill, but no matter what you do, if you are trying to work part time and fly part time, your GI bill won't get you very far. You'll want to be flying full-time.

The GI Bill fiscal year resets every August, so if you sign up in the Spring and take accelerated courses (First half of Spring = 1st flight course, Second half = 2nd flight course), you can essentially use up your fiscal year budget of roughly $37k per year in one semester. They are way over priced when you look at pricing for all the ratings combined, but that's for a different discussion. Some of the flight schools where you can use the funds also jack up their prices... maybe because you're so limited with the GI bill. So those funds won't get you as many flight hours as if you had cash and shopped for a different Part 61 school down the street. Do your research before you commit to any particular flight school under this program (they partner with multiple schools in multiple states).

Example route you can take:

Spring 2019
First 8 weeks - Private Pilot I - $9000
Second 8 weeks - Private Pilot II - $5000
(You may need to take ground courses in conjunction, plus another course or two to collect BAH, raising your semester bill toward using 80-90% of your fiscal year private school budget).

Summer 2019
Maybe take Instrument Flight ($12000 at Liberty) if your GI months and money remaining allows, otherwise pay for this out of pocket

Fall 2019
First 8 weeks - Commercial I - $9000
Second 8 weeks - Commercial II - $9000

Out of pocket
Commercial III - $9000 (or do this Part 61 if it's cheaper to finish)
Finish all the rest of your ratings out of pocket

Those prices I listed are their advertised lab fees, not including other miscellaneous stuff you'd have to pay for out of pocket. All in all, you could get a large chunk of training accomplished if you're smart about it. If you wait until Fall 2019 to start, you'll probably not have access to GI bill funds from Jan-Aug 2020 while you wait on your fiscal budget to reset (even if you have "months" of benefits remaining).

If you already have your Private, then obviously shift the courses you sign up for. Here's their other advertised lab fees below ($90,500 total in fees just for the flight portion, not including ground school, books, checkrides, etc)... so not the cheapest option for folks without the GI bill.

Flight Instructor - $12,000
Flight Instructor Instrument - $7,000
Multi-Engine Flight - $8,500
Multi-Engine Instructor - $10,000
Stoked27 is offline  
Old 10-17-2018, 10:27 AM
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Forces to Flyers

Just opened up another class for December. You can not have a PPL to be accepted.

Submit to all 4 schools and see what happens.
FullFlaps is offline  
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