Its not impossible for a poor kid to be a pro pilot. They seldom make the big leagues without a decent amount of support beyond highschool. The really smart ones often dismiss flying as a career.

Great summery.

Who cosigned your student loans? My parents credit was too bad to cosign mine, which almost derailed me from getting to where I am today. Thankfully, I was blessed to have a grandmother with good credit to step in. I got grants and scholarships too, but without that 60k loan, I never would have made it over the hump.

I had a few students who had no problem with money, and failed out due to their own lack of work ethic. But many more ran out of money halfway through the program and had to drop out.

Money is a huge obstacle.

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Tell you what why don't you clean those toilets with all your training and education. Why we can even give you a title to go along with it.

Those jobs are precious, especially if you've ever been in the blue room after a 10+ hour flight or maybe even any flight originating from EWR or LGA. :p

Yes they deserve every penny they make!

I wouldn't do it. That is the reason I went to school to make sure I didn't have to fall back on a crap job like that. I'm glad there are people that do that though cause I couldn't.

DETPILOT...Detroit by chance? I'm from Detroit and learned to fly there. Dad was a tool and die maker at Chrysler. Mom stayed home. Three boys. Not a penny for college or flight training. Grandmother co-signed $2500 loan for my private. Took 3 years to get through CFII because of cash issues. If I didn't have loans and financial help outside of family I wouldn't have made it.

Later I owned a flight school (part 61, non ratings farm). I have 4600 hrs as a primary instructor. Not cookie cutter military/college types learning to fly. All walks of life: zookeeper, chef, lots of cops, EMS, nurses, realtor, funeral director, etc. Since 1991 I've seen maybe 5-10 people who simply couldn't make it. My best student? A stripper (worked at BTs on 8 mile, so I heard). No joke. Nearly unlimited cash. Flew 5 days a week. Private to Commercial in 3 months. Access to cash does matter. Good pilot.

The pay for training programs of the 1990s demonstrate cash does provide opportunity and advancement and limit those without the means. What happened to those that couldn't afford to drop 10K? They weren't hired. As a result those that could afford it advanced their careers, opportunity, and seniority not based on merit or ability but solely on ability to pay. I'm sure there were lots of equally qualified candidates passed over simply because of finances.

Then there's Gateway 7 here at B6. 125K gets you a slot. Five of those 7 have zero flight time. But the means to pay apparently.

I remember when I went for my private instrument checkride. I had run out of money, and had just enough to pay the examiner, the aircraft rental, and gas for the cross-country drive home. I agreed to fly a cheap desktop sim I had never seen before to cut the cost of the ride.
I couldn't fly that POS to save my life. Spun it, even. Never even got out to the airplane.
That was a long flight back, and a long drive home.
It took about two years for me to save up the cash to start on my ratings again. All strictly pt. 61.
That was nearly thirty years ago, I can't believe how much more expensive it is now.

Yeah, not everybody can do our job. (Some shouldn't.) But money is the #1 reason most drop out or don't even attempt it. Be thankful you were in a position to make it work out, it was hard for all of us.
There are a lot of people on the outside who would love to fly, but the circumstances they were born into make that dream damn near impossible.

I pawned my guitar and amp the day before my private pilot checkride to get the money to pay for it. That ride was $125 in 1989. The same ride today is $450. I miss that Red Fender Strat...:(

On the "even more ashamed" front, I drove without car insurance for 18 months while making $10/hr as a CFI at DET and without working windshield wipers for 6 months (RainX is awesome). I also illegally lived in a storage unit for 45 days on my $7000 a year CFI income (showered at the gym). All true.

You are proof that if you want this job bad enough you will do whatever it takes to scrape up the money.
(That Strat is probably worth a gozillion bucks these days ) 😜