Hi everyone,


Close to graduating college and would love some advice on funding flight school. It seems that everyone is taking out loans to finance flight school, the advantage being they can finish training quickly and start building their hours. I was wondering if anyone had any experience working part time instead to pay for flight school and paying as you go. Does anyone have a rough estimate for how long that might take (I know it varies person to person) vs. ATP's one year zero to hero program?



Any input would be greatly appreciated

Only you can answer that question. How much “extra” money will you have available each week for flight training, while working part-time and also paying all your living expenses? You would need to budget around $100K over XX period of time. If you can afford a pace of 2-3 flight lessons per week, it could take you realistically 2-3 years to acquire the hours, certificates and ratings to start making money as a pilot. If you can only afford to fly once a week, then you should triple your timeframe as an estimate.

Even ATP's zero to hero is "only" $76k (well under $100k).

Going to a smaller part 61 all the way to CFII, I would think you could stay under $50k. Maybe even less if you're in a lower COL area and manage to minimize cost by using flying clubs and that sort of thing.

That's my plan, but I'll be training full time if I can get the money together.

My kids have moved out and I'm ready for a career change. Planning to downsize the house to pay for training and let my wife support me until I'm making money again. Just have to convince her it's a good idea, lol.

So that's another option besides ATP.

Folks who have gone all the way through at a regular 61 school (not ATP), how much did it cost you to get zero to CFI, or at least zero to commercial?

The overall training costs you quoted are “bare bones” minimums and not realistic of actual overall cost from zero to “marketable” as a pro pilot.

Thanks guys! Glad to hear that it can be done with just 2-3 flights per week.