Paying for PPL

Aviation General Aviation
1

So I am 27 and have wanted to get my PPL since I was about… 15. I think it is time to just DO IT and get it done. It has been a dream of mine for so long and watching YouTube videos of flying doesn’t help me!

The only thing stopping me is the cash involved…
Does anybody know if many flight-schools would allow you to use a student loan (FAFSA, etc)?
I’ve always heard you should go to the airport where the school is located and offer to help with planes. Does that ACTUALLY work? lol. Sounds a bit dubious to me.

2

contact Sallie Mae they do training loans

3

Only if you can count it as college credit now, I believe. They used to give out lots of loans, and now , they are quite restrictive.

4

A lot of us worked at the FBO/flight school during our formative years. You get employee rates!!

5

OR…just go into Uncle Sams Military…theres money for Flight school there. (New GI Bill …etc…) Good luck.

6

+1!

Earned a large portion of my costs for flight training by wiping windshields and nacelles, passing gas, washing planes, etc., etc.

Also had numerous occasions where an owner would state “just gonna’ fly around the patch today and shoot some touch and go’s, wanna’ come?”.

While all of the above occurred just shortly after the brothers from Ohio made their first flight, it can still work today if you’re young and eager. 27 might be beyond the age limit however. :wink:

7

Ha, I’d rather NOT join the military at this point. I almost did when I was 18 (some friends of mine did), but I think it is too late for that now.

I know if I go to the flight school and start training, they may let me do things like wash windshields, wash planes, etc, but somehow I doubt I could approach them and ask if I could do that in trade for flight training.

The other option is that I could do the training, but extend it over a period of months (A year+), but I’ve heard that isn’t a very good option because you tend to forget what you have learned a lot easier. Any thoughts on that option?
In any case, I’m doing it whether I can get a loan or not! It is definitely time!

8

You’re not going to do it in three weeks anyway, anything up to one flight per week or ten days is ok. Much more than that and they are right, you start to lose what you learned. You don’t have to take all your flight lessons in the brand new Garmin Cessna 172, ask if they have an old beat up 150 and save 30 or 40 bucks an hour. In the end it’s all the same.
Ask the flight school if they have any openings, can’t hurt.

9

I do IT, so maybe I could trade IT work or training for flight lessons.
Good idea on the Cessna 150! Anybody from Utah know the best school around here?

10

As long as it doesn’t get you in trouble… 8)

11

Work nights and weekends delivering pizza. Save up enough money to pay cash. That’s the best plan I can think of.

12

Well, I have a job coming up over the summer editing videos for Skydive Utah, so that should make me some money for sure…I planned on using that money for skydiving, though! Priorities, I suppose. I should just spend it all on pilot lessons.

13

Once you start flying lessons you will think jumping out of a perfectly good airplane is nuts…

14

Oh I’ll never think jumping out of planes is nuts! I LOVE IT.
There’s a common saying among skydivers: “If flying an airplane is flying, then riding in a boat is swimming!”

Honestly though, any kind of flying is amazing, so everybody who flies in any way wins!

15

Haha - nah, flying is flying. Skydiving is falling!

16

Skydivers can do most anything an airplane can except travel long distances or go back up!
I’ve been in a light airplane a few times and I’ve been under parachute twice…Under parachute is a REALLY spectacular view. No fuselage to get in the way!

17

Yea, that’s the only thing stopping me from becoming a billionaire too.

Frank Holbert
160knots.com

18

I was a millionaire when I worked in Turkey. Then they went and dropped 6 zero’s from the money. :frowning:

19

Okay so here is how I did it. :smiley:

I didn’t grow up around aviation, in fact until I got INTO aviation I didn’t even know I had 2 pilots in the very extended family (funny how they all come together in a common interest)

I’ve dreamt of flying since I was a kid - Helicopters mostly but anything would do really. I hated commercial flight as a kid because I’d always want to be in the cockpit - but unfortunatly us girls only got the “you’ll be a good stewardess someday” malarky in the 70’s :unamused:

So I moved on…until my late 30’s and that Nagging feeling was still there. Still didn’t think it was possible, at ALL…until…

I saw an opening at the Local FBO for a line tech. I’m a pretty surly girl, and just came off a long 15 year carreer of tree trimming. Needed something a little less strenuous, and this looked perfect.

Thought it was best to start from the bottom and learn it all. So I did.

I have a family. A mortgage. 2 kids. Debt, and bad credit due to a very serious illness a few years ago my husband had.

how in god’s name was I going to do this? I didn’t know. but I had a plan…

At first i got to know EVERYONE at the airport. Those “Hey gonna take a couple trips around the patch, wanna come?” started coming in - just like the other gentleman said. I made sure I gave SUPERIOR customer service, and was freindly and outgoing, and made my intentions known to any who asked. I wanted to FLY. I started getting offers for x-country trips, and flights in airplanes most students have never even seen before.

I became friends with a Flight instructor, and him knowing that I was unable to afford a loan, and didn’t have the money to just pay for it, offered to teach me to fly. Free. (him not the airplanes) Mind you this was TWO YEARS after I had started at the FBO. This didn’t happen overnight. But I was patient…But I was also 37 years old, and time was running out - especailly now that I’d worked at an FBO - pleasure flying was no longer on the list…I want to do this for a living…anyway…

I began advertising plane washing services, Hangar cleaning services, and did odd jobs during the summer, relying on my Tree trimming experience to help. Hour by hour I plugged away - sometimes not flying for 2 months (technically - I could always hitch a ride to stay familiar with things in someone elses airplane) I washed pilot’s cars, their hangars for money and rental airplanes and traded for flight time in them. I also made it clear any and all extra money I made from doing these things was going straight for my flight training and not for a friday night bender. I also had several cash donations to my account at the school. To this day I don’t know who it was. =) (but **thank you **if any of you see this!)

I became involved in the steering commitee meetings, joined the pilot’s association, Volunteered for ANYTHING available - air shows, air races, etc. etc. and worked as many hours at the FBO as possible.

I stared in a 172, went to a 152 and then another 172 then (they all changed hands grrr. lol)

I finished up in a 2008 Remos GX that was 50$ less than the cheapest 172 on the field at that time.

And in 80 hours, two years later I got my PPL…It was HARD it was grueling, I had setbacks I had problems with people, airplanes, time, weather and patience.

But I did it.

Took 2 years, and 2 months, but I did it. AND* I have no loan to pay off. *

20

That’s awesome pilotchick - I could definitely learn something from your perseverance! - A great story to teach the saying, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”