How To Get Money For Flight Training

If you live in a fairly large city, chances are there will be more than one flight school in the area.

I'm from Portland, Oregon. Here, there are at least 5 helicopter flight schools and twice as many fixed wing schools.

Welcome to Helicopter town. This is home of Columbia Helicopters, Ericksson Crane, and Evergreen Helicopters. We live and die with flight training! The weather is not so pretty 9 months out of the year (overcast and raining) so anyone who trains here will learn from THE BEST that this part of the world has to offer. As a matter of fact, no more than 2 miles from where I live, the local FBO (Hillsboro Aviation) has contracts with Asian passenger airline companies and trains all their future pilots.

*****WARNING*****

Flight training schools will try and get you on a "fact" that a lot of the Vietnam era helicopter pilots are retiring and therefore there's a lot of demand in the HELICOPTER field- Don't necessarily believe that!!! (more on that later)

That sounds great doesn't it? Flying with a company? FLYING in general? Can you smell the money?

No matter where you live, flight training will cost you something. Allow me to talk a little about where that money can come from.

In my EXTENSIVE research on flight training and how to pay for it- I've come across these ways:

Your Own Money
Military Money

If you're still young enough, there are a couple ways you can do this in the military. The first way is if you're an officer. That is the first and primary way. I was looking into going into the Coast Guard to fly their helicopters. That requires a bachelor's degree (which I don't have) and to be an officer. Not only that, but it's also an 11 year commitment.

R-I-G-H-T

My wife wouldn't like that.

Next is to become a warrant officer in the Army. There, you don't need a degree, but you will be placed in flight training ASAP. You'll fly in combat (most likely in the Middle East as I write this-March of 2010). The positive about flying in the military is if you can actually step away from your military commitment, then you'll be first in line when you want to fly EMS (Air Ambulance, Life Flight).

Life Flight (Air Ambulance or whatever) require ALOT of hours and experience when looking for candidates to fly their helicopters. Flying in the military will give you that.

So, if you're eligible for flight training through the military and can't seem to come across actual funds, perhaps you could try that!

If you're looking into flight training for airplanes, there's technically quite a few sources for you.

First of all, you can look into the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Most cities will have a distance learning course from the ERAU that corresponds with local FBOs (fixed based operations) and you may have to apply for a student loan for your flight training. Of course, if you live in Florida or in Arizona, they have excellent locations in which you can learn how to fly there. So the money for flight training is in that school.

Another option is looking into the FBO and their programs. Some smaller-scaled ones may actually hand you a loan or work HARD with you to help you with flight training. But chances are, those are hard to come by. It doesn't hurt to ask.

One experience I had with a local FBO and their program was through an aviation school called Utah Valley University. They have a great 2 year degree or 4 year degree program for the fixed wing pilots in training. NONE however for the rotor-craft folks.

Still interested in finding money for flight training?

If you're still reading this, chances are you can't really qualify for the military training, or possibly even local FBO loans. Please take what I'm about to say into DEEP consideration.

I could not go into the military. Nor could I get loans through schooling or through a local FBO. Even with perfect credit AND a cosigner, I still would have only been able to get approved for 1/3 of the total loan. In the helicopter world, that would have meant 70-80k for me. If you do the math, it will take me 2 years to get my commercial license, after that, I'm 80k in the hole. That's a DOWN PAYMENT on a house!!!

I finally found a way to get funds for flight training and that was when I realized that 3 of my friends were making money AFTER they got laid off from their jobs. I realized they were always able to pay for their lunches whenever we all went out to eat!

To be able to pay for your flight training in cash and up front- I suggest Internet Marketing!!

Internet Marketing may seem like a HUGE task to you, but it's really not. If you're serious about your flight training career or hobby, then you must exercise every option available to you.

Here's some Q&A

Q: What is internet marketing?
A: one way is simply when you promote someone else's product and if people buy it from your promotions, you get a commission on the sale!

Q: Do I need a degree to do this?
A: no

Q: Do I need a website?
A: It helps, but NO.

Q: How much money could be made?
A: I have a specific action plan in which I'm currently following right now. It consists of me promoting a different product every week. That's 52 "campaigns". Here's how it works:

If you make 52 campaigns (one each week for the next year), and each campaign ONLY makes an average of $10 a week, how much will you
be making one year from today?

52 campaigns online x $10 ea per week = $520/week
$520 per week x 52 weeks in a year = $27,040 / year

Now, while that is not MILLIONS, it is also the very LOW end of the possibilities. Keep in mind, that the computation above is requiring
each campaign to only make $40 a month. For many Clickbank products, that is the equivalent of a campaign only making ONE sale a
month.

Now, let's have fun and be a little more realistic. Let's say your average affiliate commission is $35 and each campaign sells one product per week.

52 campaigns online x $35 ea per week = $1820/week
$1820 x 52 weeks in a year = $94,640 / year

I'm not personally making that figure, YET. But I'm writing this to tell you that I'm making a certain amount of money that has allowed me to pay for my helicopter flight training IN CASH.

So stop kidding around and click on the link to show you more of how to get money for flight training!