Our finance programs are designed for part-time, fixed-wing private pilot or instrument training.
You can finance Commercial and Advanced programs as long as the training fits within our program guidelines and you can afford the payments. For more information, refer to the "Minimum Program Sizes and Typical Program Sizes" in the FAQs below.
No. There is no prepayment penalty. You will be refunded any unearned interest for paying off your account early. Interest rebates, or refunds, for early payment in full (referred to as “prepayment”), is determined by the finance regulations in your state. The calculation varies from state to state.
Our Preferred Customer Interest Refund Program is a simple way for you to earn back up to 25% of your interest. If you make all of your payments on time, the interest will be recalculated 3 percentage points lower than your contract rate and we will refund you the difference. Your effective interest rates charged will then work out to between 9%-15%.
Our contract interest rates range from 12%-18% depending on your qualifications. Generally, the interest rate will be somewhat lower than you might pay on traditional credit card accounts. The next FAQ explains how every student can obtain lower interest rates with our Preferred Customer Interest Refund Program.
Pilot Finance does not have a maximum program size limit. The maximum financed program is determined by your training goals, training schedule, demonstrated payment history, and of course your ability to pay the monthly payments.
For the private pilot and instrument programs we finance, a typical “full” training program includes between 55-65 hours of aircraft rental. Because financing “add-on” or “finish-up” training will likely not be available, it is important that your program size be...
We consider “partial programs” that include 25-44 hours on an exception basis. Partial programs are not eligible for the full repayment terms that are offered for “full” programs of 45 or more hours of aircraft rental. The repayment terms for partial programs are...
Pilot Finance programs are for part-time training with training schedules that average between 1-5 lessons per week. The maximum training schedule must be established in advance because the maximum repayment periods we can offer is determined by the agreed maximum (average) training schedule. Lessons missed because of weather, scheduling or other reasons can be “made up” later, but you may not accelerate your training beyond the agreed maximum (average) training schedule, measured cumulatively.
Unfortunately, at this time our programs cannot accommodate accelerated training that involves more than 5 lessons per week. Please see our payment calculator after these FAQs to see how your training schedule affects your payment size.
For purposes of our financing, individual flight lessons may average up to 2.0 hours of aircraft rental and up to 3.0 hours total instruction time.
The repayment terms are determined by the number of lessons per week, on average, you would like to take. Repayment terms range from 18 months for our most accelerated programs with 5 lessons per week, to 72 months for programs with only 1 lesson per week. Most of our customers use programs with 2-3 lessons per week and repay over 48-60 months. At the end of these FAQs, please refer to our payment calculator to see how training schedules affect the size of your payments.
You can apply for “add-on” or “finish-up” training provided that 50% of the payments on your initial account are satisfactorily paid. To avoid running short of training funds, we strongly encourage students and schools to package training programs that will be fully sufficient to achieve the training goal. Most of our schools add a “cushion” of additional aircraft and instruction hours, because many students need more hours than they originally anticipated.
Please be aware that additional training will likely have to be paid from other resources. For most transactions, unused training funds cannot be forfeited, as explained in the next FAQ.
If funds are left over after training is completed, you have several options: 1) use the remaining funds to rent aircraft and build hours; 2) use the remaining funds to take additional training; or 3) elect to terminate your program and have the unused training funds credited to your Pilot Finance account to reduce your remaining monthly payments.
PLEASE NOTE: All training funds may be fully earned, or used up, by the flight school in certain circumstances where they have guaranteed certification and/or committed to providing free “finish-up” training if needed. Ask your flight school if you are concerned about this issue.
All Pilot Finance programs clearly state that you may terminate your training at any time for any reason! Your school and Pilot Finance warrant this right. Both of us guarantee a refund of any unused training funds at the time of your termination.
The refund is credited to your Pilot Finance account balance. You will never have to pay for training services you did not receive! We are proud of the way our programs protect our students.
This is a very important risk consideration for flight students. You should be careful of programs where the flight school controls a significant amount of the training funds exclusively, unless the financial institution guarantees that an immediate credit refund is available when a training program is terminated, regardless of the reason for termination.
The questions and answers above were taken from the Pilot Finance website. We are not responsible for their accuracy, relevance or timeliness.