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Originally Posted by Jefu  How did you pay for your flight training? Any suggestions? Any tips on what to avoid at all costs? Any and all help greatly appreciated. |
If you're interested in aviation as a career, I'd start with saving a little money and see how you feel after training past your initial solo flight (about 10-20 hours). That should give you a pretty good indication as to if you have the interest and aptitude to continue. At the same time, it won't kill your bank account. If you do show interest in continuing, you're going to have to either bank up as much money as you can to pay out of pocket or take out a loan to finance the dream. Flight training is expensive. I for one have made a huge mistake going to one of these "elite training" programs (or so they say) and found myself into a huge debt.
Since it sounds to me like you don't have a lot of money, I'd seriously consider your financial future. Going into debt is not the best course of action here. Trust me, I know (paying a cool $1000 per month for the next 14 years). At the same time, it is a pretty rewarding experience to be able to fly. I don't know if it's rewarding enough to justify $1000/month for 15 years but...to each's own. Start with your initial training or even a few flight lessons to start. Your flight time that you log is yours forever. You might find that saving up for a year before delving into flight training is the financially wiser route to go. I definitely wouldn't do the pay as you go because one life incident and you could find yourself out of money for flight training and "training interuptus" is just not good for holding onto those skills airlines are interested in as disuse over time erodes very fast during initial training.
If you have any additional questions, please ask on this message board. There are plenty of experience here and you can usually find what you're looking for. Best of luck!