AirborneGuy

I am looking to get my ratings and want to get them ASAP. Instrument, multi, and commercial. Are there any veterans out there that used the GI Bill to get their ratings? Did they cover 100%, 50%. I am hearing different stories. This is from the VA site.

https://www.benefits.va.gov/GIBILL/r...ates080117.asp

$13K per calendar year? Seems I will be waiting a while before I get all of my ratings. Should I consider a flight school with tuition reimbursement and try to use the GI Bill? Is this possible?

Thank you!

Gundriver64

Can you access ebenefits.gov? If not, you can create a profile. From there you can access all kinds of information on the education side of things with respect to the VA. My understanding is that they have really throttled back on flight school expenditures limiting it to ATP-CPL training, type ratings, and professional ratings. You may even have to pay for your PPL out of pocket. It may be best to ask these questions on the military forum.

Cheers,
G

AirborneGuy

Originally Posted by AirborneGuy View Post
I am looking to get my ratings and want to get them ASAP. Instrument, multi, and commercial. Are there any veterans out there that used the GI Bill to get their ratings? Did they cover 100%, 50%. I am hearing different stories. This is from the VA site.

https://www.benefits.va.gov/GIBILL/r...ates080117.asp

$13K per calendar year? Seems I will be waiting a while before I get all of my ratings. Should I consider a flight school with tuition reimbursement and try to use the GI Bill? Is this possible?

Thank you!

Stoked27

The $13k per year is in relation to the Montgomery GI Bill option and is the equivalent of cashing out 12 months of benefits for $13k. You're not limited to cashing out only 12 months of benefits per year going that route. You could theoretically cash out 36 months worth for $39k in training expenses and use them immediately the way I understand it. This is a horrible financial use of your benefits though...

I recommend searching the forum (mainly the Flight Training threads) for keywords "GI Bill" and "Liberty." There's a few posts from myself and others in relation to using the GI Bill and it'll explain why cashing out via the Montgomery option is such a poor use of your benefits.

Liberty University is the best financial use of your benefits that I'm aware of, but there might be other opinions from folks that can chime in. Liberty is part of the Yellow Ribbon program (more money) and provides BAH, so you could get around $37k of training per year covered plus BAH. If you don't need the degree, just take the flight courses and finish each course that you start. Take the bare minimum courses to be eligible for BAH.

Any route you go via the GI Bill won't be as fast as a zero-to-hero program that you pay cash (or loan) for. You can take accelerated semesters every 8 weeks with Liberty, but you'll run out of your fiscal GI Bill budget and find yourself sitting around waiting for the next August to roll around and reset. You'll be trading your timeline a bit for a significant cost savings, so depending on your financial situation and desires you'll have some things to think about.

Explore that and if you have any questions feel free to PM me.

USAFFlightEng

You get the best bang for you buck if you get your ratings in association with a BA degree from a college with an aviation program. I did the Liberty University flight affiliate program which allows you to do the training more locally to you.. but I got hosed on BAH living in CA.

AirborneGuy

So you did the online training and got BAH? How did you do your flight training though, how did that work?

AirborneGuy

What did they cover as far as the certs and ratings? PPL? Instrument? Multi? Commercial?

cheap

I used some of mine while on AD for my ATP through a 737 type program. Your benefit is reduced significantly when used for technical training like that; they take the cost and divide it by the technical annual cap (~$13k) and charge your balance by the appropriate amount of months since these programs don’t follow traditional school calendars.

To give you some perspective on what you’re potentially giving up in benefits, I also used my post-9/11 for an expensive MBA ($70k) where one semester was ~$13k. My first semester was the last one of a fiscal year, only 3 months of benefits charged for $13k payout and then the annual limits clock reset for the next semester. I was able to bank some scholarship and apply it all in one semester so the next FY I was able to use scholarship to pay for a semester and GI to pay for another one at only a 3-month benefit charge again. That was $26k for 6 months of benefits, and then I did it again for my last semester that rolled into a third fiscal year. You don’t get that kind of flexibility when using it for vocational training.

Also FYI there’s a little-known top-up rule that helped pay for my ATP - when you’re using up the last bit of your GI benefit and you’re short on funds, as long as you can cover >50% of the charges they’ll top you up and cover it all. My $8k ATP program only cost me my last 4 months of benefits.


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Grunzen

You will have to pay for your PPL out of pocket unless your doing a degree program (Resident or affiliate). I've used mine for IFR, most of CSEL, and now currently doing CFI. Commercial requires 120 hours for the training which is 2 years worth of benefits/time. I switched to Pt 61 and took my checkride when benefits dried up for the year. A lot of schools will require you to place a deposit of some sort to cover your training while waiting for the VA to reimburse them. That could be several months sometimes.

Frosty88

I went through a Liberty affiliate (Ocala Aviation). G.I. Bill paid for my commercial, instrument, and multi. I also got my bachelors. I still have 14 months of benefits left. The only thing I came out of pocket for was my PPL.