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One of my favorite questions when flying with a new first officer is to find out how they paid for their flight training. It seems that everyone takes fairly different routes.

- Some have parents that pay for it.

- Some flew as officers in the military and let them pay for it, then made the transition to airline pilots.

- Some, and these are the majority, worked at it piece-by-piece-by-piece until they had achieved all their certificates and ratings and had enough hours become flight instructors and eventually apply at a freight company or interview at a regional airline. All the while going into substantial debt to do it.

Me, I was fortunate enough to use my GI Bill to pay for all my ratings up to my CFI. My CFI-I and MEI though came out of my own pocket. Luckily the highest costs were behind me and by the time I had become a CFI, I had aligned myself with a flight school that was letting me work as a dispatcher and eventually as a CFI. Once I got my MEI though, things really started moving along because the flight school I worked for only used Beechcraft Duchess and were geared towards pilots that wanted to become professional pilots.

So how do you pay for your flight training these days?

Well there are a lot of options available but it requires that you be creative sometimes, have a “can do” attitude, and explore all avenues. Some are more traditional than others and in most cases it requires that you maybe put yourself out there to get it done.

So here are a few recommendations. Pick the one that you think will work best for you. Try it! If it doesn’t work for you, then try the next one. Eventually you will find one that works and will have you on your way to getting those flight hours and your ratings.

1. Prosper.com – Not many banks are going to lend you money these days to get “pilot training.” There really isn’t anything in it for them. If you try to use other lending sources or a hard money lenders, well, most likely their interest rate is going to put you in debt for a very long time. I like Prosper.com because it is peer-to-peer lending, meaning that your loan is a collaborative effort of many people giving you the money to finance your loan. Prosper does a thorough financial investigation on you and the better credit report you have and more tangible assests you have, the lower your interest rate is going to be. Check them out here and see if this is something you might be interested in.

2. Join the Military- OK, this might be a bit extreme but hear me out. There are a lot of benefits to joining the military. You get tuition assistance towards a college degree, the GI Bill during and after you get out, plus you get access to their Aero Clubs that have well maintained airplanes and great flight instructors. Essentially, in one swoop, you get a college degree which you will need when interviewing and the military pays for your flight training. You walk away with little or no aviation induced debt.

3. Grants and Scholarships – This option is a treasure and highly unused. Most people think that they have to do the above two options if they want to fly. Grants and scholarships are organizations giving you money that you don’t have to pay back. Check out 101 General Aviation and Flight Training Scholarships and see if any apply to you. Even if you don’t think that it applies to you, apply anyway. You never know, they might say, “Yes!” Furthermore, do a little research into federally funded flight training programs. Again, these are programs that will pay you to fly and get your ratings and you don’t have to pay them back. AvScholars.com is another source of information.

4. Ferry Aircraft – This is one way of building hours that I wish I had done more of. I’ve talked to first officers that this is all they did. He would ferry airplanes from the United States to places I had never heard of flying many different aircraft along the way. Obviously you need to get a few ratings first, like your Private Pilot, Instrument, and (maybe) your Commercial ratings. You need to establish relationships, too. You need to make contact with people who have airplanes and with people who fix airplanes. If these people know that you are capable, insured (or the owner has insurance on whoever flies the airplane), and willing, you can build substantial flight time and even occasionally get paid for it, if you have a Commercial rating that is. But don’t only look for long-haul flights, but consider just the flights were you take the airplane up, sometimes with a mechanic, to evalute a recent fix. To make this happen, consider getting some business cards made and start distributing them around your flight school and FBO. Post them on bulletin boards or leave them lying around.

5. Be A Safety Pilot – Now this can be very confusing because a lot of people think that if you are a “safety pilot” then you can log pilot-in-command (PIC) time which is what everyone wants because it is what is important when applying for that coveted airline job. However it is more complicated than that. As a reference, review FAR 61.51 and FAR 91.109 for the exact verbiage. But let’s break it down though under different scenarios:

- Scenario 1: One pilot wants to work on simulated instrument and you are the “safety pilot” – Either pilot may be PIC but it must be decided prior to the flight. The one who is the PIC is the only one who can log PIC time. If the pilot who wants to practice their simulated IFR skills agrees to make you the safety pilot and PIC, then you can log it as PIC and you have ultimate responsibility for the flight.

- Scenario 2: One pilot wants to work on simulated instruments and you are the safety pilot – If you are just the safety pilot, and the pilot flying simulated instruments is the PIC, then only they log PIC time and you can log second-in-command (SIC) time. Kind of useless but good experience.

- Scenario 3: One pilot wants to work on simulated instruments and you are the safety pilot -  Let’s say there is a two hour flight and during those 2 hours one of you flies under the hood for 1.5 hrs, during that time the other pilot can log PIC. The acting PIC gets 2 hours flight time with 1.5 simulated instrument and the safety pilot gets 1.5 hours PIC time. Then, the next time you go up you switch seats with your training partner and repeat the process. One thing the pilot who is under the hood needs to definitely remember to do is list the name of the pilot that served as their safety pilot. Also, remember, the operative words are “acting PIC.” Only one can be acting PIC but both can log PIC time.

6. Wash Planes and Sweep Floors – Sometimes you have to do whatever it takes. Washing planes and sweeping floors may not be glamorous but it can be effective. People who own planes want them clean but they don’t want to clean them. Companies that have hangers want them clean but don’t want to clean them. In this case, again, print out some business cards offering to clean their airplanes in exchange for money or flight time. Contact people that have hangers and offer to clean them in exchange for money or flight time. What you are doing is building relationships with other pilots and people that have access to airplanes. You build relationships and access to airplanes. You become the person that they think of when they want someone to fly with or need a maintenance flight. Your build of references when you apply for the freight job or airline job. You get experience in many different types of airplanes.

Anyway, I hope this has given you some ideas. In today’s environment, if you want to fly, you have to put yourself out there and go beyond your personal boundries. You will be turned down often but it is a numbers game. The more people you talk to, the more chances you have of hitting gold.

I would love to hear your ideas and things that have worked for you, so be sure to leave a comment below.

To Your Flying Success…

Jeffrey

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