5 ways to save money becoming a professional pilot

[Flyingdog1]

Get your private license before going 141. If you get your private at a 141 school you'll have 70 to 80 hours before you get it. At Joe Blow flight school 40 to 50 hours.

 

[mainiac]

If you have the backing, buy yourself a used 172 or 152. (By used, I mean an older, solid model, might be higher time, but something in the $35K range) I had a 1965 F model 172, bought with 200hrs left TBO, but cert IFR for $32K.
Find an instructor who'll train you in it, and diligently pay the avg rental rate back to the loan on the aircraft. If you're really savvy, when you've got your cfi, work a lease-back deal with a local FBO, and train others in your airplane. By the time you move on to a different paying gig, you might have the plane paid off, thereby making the bulk of your training cost only the instructor charges (multi obviously will cost additional).

I did this, but didn't buy the airplane until I started instructing. Sold it when I went to a regional, broke even, and got a lot of flying time in my own aircraft. Wish I'd bought it in training! By my cost analysis, I could have paid half the equity back on the plane by the time I had my CFI,CFII.

PM me if you want copies of an Excel cost breakdown sheet I used when I was working with the FBO

 

[Lynxman]

^^ Excellent idea right here. Plenty of good airplanes that are going for far less than what they used to be. Remember it doesn't need to be some fancy whizbang machine either. A GPS is a maybe couple vor's, adf and dme and your set. Fly the crap out of it and earn the rest of your ratings in it.