The Good, Bad, and the UGLY of financing FS
 

I just wanted to start a conversation on the truths or your experience about financing your flight school. Who did you finance through and why. Was it worth it or not. If you had to do it all over agian would you and what would you change.

GOOD: Allows one to complete flight training quickly.

BAD: One incurs substantial debt.

UGLY: Should one fail, quit, become injured, lose medical certificate, etc, or otherwise never complete training - now one is saddled with substantial debt AND no job prospects to pay it back.

Bad: Interest rates are really high at the moment.

I started in HS and worked jobs all through college, like many, to get my tickets. But heck, that was 20 yrs ago and 4-bangers were 67/hr wet.

If it was me today? Honestly, I'd take out a loan and buy an airplane. You can get a solid trainer for less than the cost of a new car. I'd take out a little more to cover costs for annuals for at least the first 3 yrs. Your monthly payment on the plane will probably be what 2 hrs will cost you. You'll reduce your cost immensely IMO.

Once you're done, keep it to time build, you can lease it out to a flight school, or sell it. Good luck.

How many H.S. or college kids can afford to buy and fund the costs of buying an airplane? They'd have to find someone to research the airplane, etc, etc. With someone's active guidance they might be able to do it but I doubt many kids, or their parents, are comfortable going this route. If they were they probably wouldn't be asking about "how do I pay for this"? Instead mom and/or dad would just be writing checks.

Probably none. I just stated I started in HS and things were cheaper. I'm not saying a HS kid should buy a plane. I assumed he/she was older.

You have not priced trainers lately!

You can't tell me that you can't find a trainer less expensive than a brand new Rolls, Bentley or even a Range Rover😅

I paid FS myself back during the economic crisis when barely anyone was hiring.

The good: I was going anti-cyclical. When everyone was back to hiring pilots, I was basically ready to go with my license which, I think, lead ultimately to a faster router to a job compared to if I hadn't paid it.

The bad: I think it pushed me for my whole career, in a bad way. Now that I paid so much upfront, I felt like I had to get my "return on investment" as fast as possible, which made me make some bad decisions ultimately, "rushing" through my career.

Would I do it again? If the economy was that dire as it was back then, probably. Because otherwise I feel like I would have just lost time. But in today's economy, I don't think I would.

Just don't do wha I have seen so many do:
1) Buy a weiner car with a license plate that says "JTJOCK" and then....
2) Run out of money and then accuse the school of ripping you off because you didn't finish at 251 hrs.