The Issues with Paying Up Front for Flight School
- Thread starter meritflyer
- Start date
Polar742
All the responsibility none of the authority
I understand you buying block time (which is what I did when I started out), but paying for the 0 to hero program, up front in cash, is different.
I don't even think colleges make you pay for 4 years upfront.
38bat
New Member
I agree. I rent my plane for $75 per hour dry. If you buy a 20 hour block the price goes down to $60 per hour. Not the same thing as paying 50k upfront though.
Cole (Con) and his brother Jared (Scam) screwed alot of students over the years from threating students and instructors if they don't play ball they would be blacklisted from being hired at all the regionals because of who there daddy Dave Faddis is at SkyWest. To having students drop out with nearly 60 grand in debt and only a private cert and a half way done IFR ticket. Now just taking money from students and and closing doors. Just as well rob a bank. I don't like to wish bad things on people. These two I hope both end up at point of the mountain.
meritflyer
Well-Known Member
Only put up what you're willing to lose.
Flight school costs say $50,000. Your discount of 10% (50,000*.01) could be significantly lower when you consider the cost of money (interest) if your draw was for the full $50K over the term.
Furthermore and interest rates aside, your discount of $5,000 is effectively forfeiture of any 'insurance' policy (i.e. credit line or cash) you may have once had in the event you needed to move your training elsewhere for circumstances such as those described in the article.
Cash is king. In my opinion you're far better off to pay a higher training rate with a far less risk of negative financial exposure than to get sucked into the pay up front discount. It does little for you but offers operating capital (not revenue) to the school.
In essence, it's a win-lose.
tonyw
Well-Known Member
No, college is pay as you go!
That's the way people should do their aviation training, too, if you ask me.
WacoFan
Bigly
If the school provided some kind of bond that covered my financial risk I would maybe consider this. What I can't believe is that lending institutions will lend the entire amount upfront anyway as opposed to something like a construction loan where the verify the work is in progress and pay as they go. But, the cost of a bond like this would eat into the discount most probably, so I would probably not even do it then. If someone is pressuring you..."You have to decide today!"..."this deal is only good today!"..."you HAVE to pay upfront, TODAY"...then you should probably run away. Anytime a salesman breaks out the "has to be today" deal, I never do it - even if I was about to pull the trigger before he opened his mouth.
Crockrocket94
Well-Known Member
I was always weary of schools that wanted FULL payment up front... RAA was one of them. If the school goes broke, there goes your money.
tonyw
Well-Known Member
That's pretty bad salesmanship, if you ask me.
I've done it a few times in my career, like when we're getting ready to go to press and someone needs to pull the trigger if they want to be in an issue. And I wasn't lying when I said that, either. There's a deadline when things need to be printed.
But with something like aviation training? You do not need to do it right away. You can sleep on it. It's not like you have to start the next day or you will never be able to learn to fly.
falconvalley
Absentee Dad of the OOTSK, Runner, Cat Frustrator
Buy x amount today and get 10% free!! = We need money really bad!!! = you're money isn't going directly into providing you flight time = gambling = falconvalley doing it in moderation
WacoFan
Bigly
Yeah - but like you said, going to press and a deadline, or something that has a known time limited trigger is one thing. That isn't bad salesmanship. What these flight schools do is horrible though. Although...I wonder if I could create a bonding product...
sdfcvoh
This is my Custom Title
So True! There are several other ex National Pilot Academy (NPA) students on this board, and it always interested me to hear their stories. Most were such standard boilerplate it just blew my mind - see quote above. I too got the hose from them. Fortunately, I got out without a huge loss of money, and then I finished my CFI at a real school. I didn't go to some sham DPE way out in Reno to get "signed off" on my CFI. I'm the real deal.
There are people that have no problems preying on others with a dream. Cole Faddis, Jared Faddis, Robert Tripp, and Troy Wadsworth of the now bankrupt National Pilot Academy fall into that category in my opinion. The fact that they basically sold their entire program on the promise that 100% of their graduates were flying for Skywest because of daddy David Faddis is just sickening. Most just didn't understand until it was too late.
I'm absolutely disgusted that the new "Chief Pilot" of Western Aviation (the business in the story), Craig Davis, was the Chief Pilot of NPA. I sure hope that anyone considering the new school understands Western Wings Aviation is just National Pilot Academy Part II.
Niuflyer22
Well-Known Member
Even that's not risk free. A couple of years ago I bought 10 hours in an Arrow at 10% off. Shortly after the company went under and I wound up losing $700
WacoFan
Bigly
I think the appropriate model would be comparing it to the stock market.
If you are putting down $5,000 and will get a 10% discount, how long will it take you to fly that time off? If it takes you a year, you are recieving a 10% annual rate of return...but you are risking 100% of your investment (said loss decreasing pro-rata as you fly the time of). Would you be happy with a 10% return in one year in the stock market (which also carries a 100% risk weighting)? If you would, and you have no other opportunities to make more than 10% in one year, then do your due diligence and based upon that decide. If you fly the time off in one month, decide if you could invest in anything for one month that would give you that rate of return (with 100% risk weighting) and make your decision. The sooner you fly off the time, the better the return and less risk you face. That is how I would formulate the decision though.
Western from what I hear took over the 141 program NPA was or working on. The backer of Western wings is Cheany(sp?) who was leasing back his 172 NPA and along with M. Leavitt who brought Troy back from Reno a couple of times to help set up Western Wings. IMO Western isn't out to screw people over as long M. Leavitt is involved it will be legit. Troy is just as guility as Cole and Jared, I don't buy the resigning before closing he knew what was going on and didn't really care. Before I was thrown under the bus there. Troy was bragging how SkyWest was interested in buying the flight school and runnning there own training program since NPA was far better than anyone else and SkyWest just wasn't getting good enough applicants. He was dropping names such as Camille Ence and Brad Holt coming to visit the school. If people would just do the homework and not get sold on empty promises by these scam schools.
