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Join Ben Todd, student pilot and competitive bodybuilder, as he documents the journey from flight training to professional aviation, while pursuing peak physical and mental performance.
Each episode of The Performance Pilot dives into the parallels between flying and fitness: discipline, precision, mindset, and continuous improvement. Through personal stories and conversations with industry professionals, Ben explores what it really takes to perform at the highest level — in the cockpit, in the gym, and in life.
Ben Todd (00:02.188)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's episode will be a discussion around the financial costs, sacrifices, and necessary actions when it comes to pursuing flight training and going to flight school. Before I begin, I want to take a second and talk about how I've just been kind of in this hiatus in terms of doing podcasts for the last several months.
I haven't been in probably the best headspace to do to record episodes and record content. I've been really kind of struggling through just some of my own personal financial issues that I've had to deal with. Everybody has them in life. And so I wanted to really just take some time and focus on that. And the podcast.
Kind of put that on the back burner for a little while. I'm in a much better place now than I was a few months ago. And I really want to get back into recording, posting content, creating episodes. This is something I really genuinely enjoy doing. And I want to get back to that creative outlet that I have doing this. So let's get into the episode. As we all know, if you pull up a Google search,
And you Google how much money does flight training cost, or how much does flight school cost, you're going to see numbers that range anywhere between $70,000 and $120,000. And that's a pretty large range, but it's also a pretty large number or a pretty large set of numbers. And everyone knows that goes through this process, this journey. Or if you don't know, you learn very quickly that it is.
Very expensive, and the barrier to entry financially is very high. And I think that's what keeps a lot of people away from pursuing it, is they just look at that number, which is very daunting. $100,000 worth of investment to anything is a lot of money. And I think there's a lot of people who see that and they're like, they're instantly.
Ben Todd (02:21.879)
Just decide that they don't want to do it. That's a lot of money. It's a lot of sacrifice. And depending upon where you are at in life, it may or may not be realistically feasible. And so that's something you really have to weigh out because the barrier to entry is high and it's not getting any lower. But on the other side of that, once you get through it, you make that initial investment, you land your first jet job.
After let's call it four or five years of being kind of in the industry. And you know, you take a couple of years to do flight school, and then you're a flight instructor for a couple of years. So let's say after four or five years, you finally land your first jet job, you're gonna be making a pretty good amount of money when you do that. And so the the investment, the initial investment is worth it in the long run. You just have to kind of see through the forest and see.
Kind of see to the other side and know that on the other side of that it will pay off. So for me personally, I didn't budget my finances very well in terms of my pursuit of this endeavor. I per I decided to go the route of taking out loans, which
There's arguments to be made on both sides of the aisle whether loans are good for flight school or not good for flight school. That's a debate that's going to be ongoing for a while. And it really it's really individualized. It's really up to the individual to see what their personal financial situation is and if a loan or loans is feasible for them to do. So last year when I began flight training part 61.
I did a lot of research beforehand and discovered that the typical, quote unquote typical, private pilot certificate costs anywhere between $12,000 and $20,000, generally speaking. So I decided that I was going to take out a loan for $15,000. And I thought that was going to get me to where I needed to go. I was going to be able to get all my training done, check ride, everything.
Ben Todd (04:48.543)
all within that fifteen thousand dollars. And because of how slowly I learned due to my IT job and just working full time, I d I did not pick up on things as quickly as I hoped that I would or expected that I would. So I burned through that fifteen thousand dollars pretty quickly and got probably about halfway or a little over halfway done with my training. And I had to stop because
That's all the money I gave myself to do this. So that's what created the break in my training last year and the hiatus and me trying to go back to the drawing board and really figure out if I want to do this and how I want to get it done that's realistic and feasible. Which then led me to the idea of going to school full time, quitting my full time IT job, and just really locking into it and committing to it full time.
Well, that in itself was also an additional financial cost, especially at a 141 style program where the training is very regimented. It's approved by the FAA. All of the aircraft that we had in the fleet were essentially brand new. I think twenty eighteen was the oldest aircraft we had in the fleet, which
If you're talking aircraft, that's a pretty new airplane and that's a pretty new fleet of airplanes. So there is there's an additional cost to have all these bells and whistles. So with that, I decided that I was going to take out another loan and this one for $20,000. And because of my historical context to what I did, what I went through last year with.
Taking out $15,000 and it not being enough because I was trying to split my time. I figured that if I was going to be able to commit to this full time, $20,000 should be more than enough for me to be able to get this done. And it was in the long run. It it at the end of the day, it was. I think I spent $18,500 when it was all said and done. So that ended up working out okay for me at that time, but
Ben Todd (07:11.265)
The unfortunate part is that I do just due to my decision making, I invested a grand total of $35,000 into my private pilot training. Which is not normal. It's it's actually very abnormal. Extenuating circumstances, people spend that amount of money. But generally speaking, it's you you don't spend that amount of money just doing your private. So that put me in a little bit of a bind. And
I began to realize this as I got deeper into my training this past spring. I had taken out my 401k from my last company when I left. So I was planning on using that money to float me through. Additionally, I had at the time I had a just picked up a serving job at a restaurant, and they had eventually transitioned me into management.
So I was banking on the fact that my 401k money as well as the income I'd have from the restaurant would be enough to float me through all of the necessary financial needs that I would have as I was going through training. What I failed to take into account was the fact that restaurant salaries generally aren't.
Amazing, even even with making tips. I wasn't working at any kind of five-star, you know, Michelin star steakhouse or anything like that. So my tips that I was obtaining were not, I was learning very quickly they were not going to be enough for what I would need to sustain me with rent and other bills. And there's some other bills that I had acquired just through my earlier days of life that I was still paying on. So
I had a lot of financial responsibility that I had to be accountable for. And I was realizing very fast as I was going through my training that I wasn't able to keep up with the financial need that I had. And this all kind of came to a head right after I completed my training, took my check ride, passed my check ride, got my license. I was moving or I moved.
Ben Todd (09:37.452)
The weekend after I took my check ride. And my parents flew out here from Texas. They came out, it was a nice weekend. They came out, kind of helped me organize the place, got me situated, and just spent the weekend hanging out. It was the first time I'd I'd seen them since I had had gone through flight school and and passed my check ride. So it was it was a nice weekend. But I had some candid conversations with them while they were here about the predicament that I found myself in.
And I had come to realize that I was going to run out of money. The the reservoir was running low. And I was starting to find myself in a bind. And my dad gave me the suggestion that I should probably postpone the rest of my training for some time. Not completely get rid of the idea of doing it, but for some time.
Postpone the rest of my training and go back into my stable career field of IT, which obviously gives you a stable income, pretty good income, in fact, and help me help myself get back kind of squared away and on my feet. And as much as I didn't want to stop the progress that I was making in flight training, I knew that that was the right solution.
So in May, I began the arduous process of getting back on the job hunt. My old company that I had left in January, they didn't have any s open billets for headcount. they didn't budget any money for this year to be hiring anybody. So even though I had my salary that I gave up, I don't know where that money went. Probably went back into a pool of some sort, but
Long story short is they didn't have available space to hire me back. So I was out in the job market on the on the hunt, and I was very optimistic at the beginning of this process that it was going to be fairly easy. I have a lot of skill sets that I learned, not only just from my experience in IT, but now I've got this pilot's license and can talk about the struggle mentally.
Ben Todd (12:04.427)
That I went through to obtain that. And so I thought I had a lot going for me. And it turns out that it's it was it has just been a really tough job market this year. And I I guess I didn't realize that because I haven't needed to be in the job market for the last several years. But it was a it's a tough job market out there and very competitive. And so while I was sending out all these resumes and applications and all of these things.
I wasn't getting the response or the volume of responses that I had hoped to be receiving. And when I did receive a response, I would hop on an initial screening call with a recruiter or with somebody from the firm. And there was really only a couple out of that large amount that I actually kind of made it through into an interview process with. And again, with the competitive nature of the way the market.
is structured right now. Me being out of the industry even for six months wasn't that long, but even for six months, I was kind of passed up because I took this break. And even though I went and did something else that I had always wanted to do, people thought it was admirable that I went and chased a dream. But at the end of the day, I still had this break in my professional resume and my work history. And they elected to go with
other candidates, which is understandable. And so I was really starting to get discouraged. And in this amount of time as I'm going through this process, I did run out of money. I the well dried up and I had no other option other than to solicit some help from my parents. And I I posted a reel on Instagram probably about three or four weeks ago now, talking about this, just being very candid, very open. And it actually went viral.
Now, viral for me is definitely not viral in terms of content creators out there in the world, but it's got over 30,000 views on it right now and a bunch of comments. And I think the overall thing that I learned from just putting this out into the world is that a lot of other people have struggled with the same thing as they've gone through their flight training, as they've gone through flight school. It is hard. It is financially difficult to do.
Ben Todd (14:32.535)
Pursue this path. And everyone or most people struggle with the financial piece of the puzzle. Once you get through the financial piece, kind of like I said in the beginning, once you get through the initial financial hit that you take, smooth sailing the rest of the way, great career, lots of money to be made. But the initial entry into it is tough for a lot of people. And it was it was encouraging to see that.
Other people have also struggled and talk about their their struggles and and what they've kind of had to do in their own lives to get through this process. And so it's encouraging for me to know one, I'm not the only one, and two, that all these other people figure out a way to do it because they're working jobs as pilots. So gave me some encouragement. But in the moment, as I'm having to reach out to my parents for assistance, didn't make me feel very good, right? It's it's not a
It's not something that you want to be having to do. You want to be capable and responsible for all of the necessary things that you need to do in your life. You need you you want to feel like you're able to do that. And to be unable to do that was a really discouraging feeling. got me really down. And but I had to do what I had to do because I made the decisions that I made. I quit my job.
gave up my salary, went and did this pilot thing, made those decisions. And then as a result of that, I had to then deal with the residual consequences that resulted from doing that. So for these last few months, I've been somewhat reliant on my parents to help me. I still have my restaurant job that I'm working and I'm putting in a lot more hours at to try to compensate a little bit.
But I've had to supplement with my parents. And again, not the greatest place to be in life right now, but it's kind of just what I've had to do. And I'm s extremely grateful for their willingness to help me out. They could have very easily said, Well, listen, man, like you made your choices, you made your decisions. This is what you elected to do, and now you got to deal with it. So very grateful that they have been willing to.
Ben Todd (16:58.529)
be helpful and encouraging and all of that with this process.
And so after several months of bombarding companies with applications and resumes and hours and hours spent trolling through Indeed and LinkedIn and all these different job boards, I decided that I would try a different strategy because the strategy that I was currently trying to implement wasn't working. So I made the decision one day. I took an hour and I just researched on Google all of the
consulting firms in the Phoenix area. I was like, let me just run a Google search. So I pulled up Google Maps, pulled up all of the consulting firms that existed in the city. And I just started firing out cold emails to all these companies. And no one responded to me, with the exception of one company. And this company I am now actually working for. But it's interesting how this all developed, right? Because I'm just
throwing myself out there saying, Hey, I've got this many years of experience. I have done the X, Y, and Z thing. I took six months off to go become a pilot. Now I'm ready to come back in the industry. And everyone ghosted me, with the exception of this one company.
Had a back and forth conversation on LinkedIn for a couple days, agreed to meet for just a virtual get-to-know-you kind of session. And they liked me enough and they brought me through their interview process and decided they were going to hire me. So very, very grateful for that. I started there two weeks ago. It has been, it's been a whirlwind, to say the least. I'm now in a
Ben Todd (18:48.789)
larger role, I'm in a higher role, higher tier role, and more responsibility. I'm being asked to do tasks and be accountable for tasks that I haven't had to do so far in my career. So it was it's basically a promotion while also throwing me back into the fire of the career field. So it's been a big adjustment, but I am very, very grateful. and it's really great to be back
in this field doing this kind of work, utilizing my brain and my skill sets in this capacity. It's been, it's been really great.
So, in terms of the path forward of flight school, what does that look like? Well, the the first thing that my my biggest priority right now is to become proficient in this job. That is where I need to put my focus. That is where I need to put my effort. I'm in a secondary tier two kind of role. So I'm a project engineer. I will be responsible and accountable for a lot of project work that the company will be.
has already queued up and will be selling to potential new customers. So there's a lot of work that I'll need to be doing. And I need to prioritize that at the moment. So probably for the next I'd say probably at least six months, this is going to be my sole focus is just becoming proficient in my job, being an asset to them, being a valuable resource to them and the people underneath me. That's where I need to put my focus.
Does that mean that flight school is completely out of the question? Absolutely not. I do still want to finish and plan to finish all of my training. The route by which I do that is really unknown at this point. I think through this process, I have learned that the only realistic and feasible way for me to actually complete this is to go back to the part sixty-one style of training, which is part-time on your own.
Ben Todd (20:57.105)
No official syllabus or tie to a quote unquote school environment. I think quitting my job again is out of the question. It's that's out of the realm of possibility. I did that once. I realized not the best decision to do that. I'm very grateful for the fact that I did that and the fact that I was able to complete my private pilot certificate and have the experience that I had at UND. Very grateful.
But in being logical and having some forward thinking, I don't think that doing that again is realistic or is smart. So I will have to find a way to balance working my full-time IT job with the remainder of my training. The positive part about that is that from what I hear or what I've heard.
Your private pilot certificate is the hardest certificate that you will get in your training, aside from your CFI. So instrument and commercial that I have coming up next, instrument will be next on the list. Instrument training should not be as intensive as the private pilot course was. So that's encouraging because as I said before, it was very challenging for me to balance.
My private pilot training with my full-time IT job of last year. So the fact that I now actually know how to fly a plane, am certified to fly a plane, know all of the basics of it. Yes, there's going to be some review work necessary, but the core principles of flying I've already learned. And I also plan to go rent planes now that I'm actually able to do that. Go rent planes, keep up with my proficiency.
Keep up with flying just so that those skills don't erode away. I've spent a lot of money to build those skills and to obtain the certificate. So absolutely going to still use it. But in terms of completing and pursuing the remainder of my training, it it will be put on the back burner for now. I don't have a specific timeline involved in what that's going to look like, but it's not.
Ben Todd (23:21.973)
the most important item on my list right now. My most important focus right now is becoming proficient in my job, being an asset to the company, being an asset to the people above and below me, and learning all of the functions that I have to do in that role.
So that's just kind of an update as to the financial situation that I've found myself in as a result of my choices to pursue flight training the way that I did. Do I regret the choices that I made? No, I don't. I am very grateful for the fact that I was able to do this. I put everything on the line, literally and figuratively, to get this done, and I got it done.
Very grateful and and honestly proud of myself for doing that. However, given the choice to do it over again, I would probably choose a different path. And that's only because the last few months have been have been really tough, really challenging. And if I could have saved myself from experiencing that, I would have preferred to do that. Can't go back in time, can't do things over. So what's done is done.
And now all I have left to do is just move forward with what I have going on now. But the the point that I kind of want to drive home with this is you can always figure a way out. You can always figure a way out. There's there's resources, there's there's lots of opportunities to find solutions to problems. And it's encouraging to find people who
Can empathize with your situation and can relate to your situation. Because when you feel isolated, when you feel like you're on an island, when you feel like you're the only person that's experiencing this hardship or this struggle, it makes you feel very alone. But when you are able to connect with people who maybe aren't facing the exact situation that you're in, but have faced similar situations or
Ben Todd (25:35.818)
At least understand what it's like to be in that situation. It's it's very encouraging that there are other people out there who have gone through this struggle or know someone who's gone through the struggle or have some sort of association with going through the struggle. Everyone goes through struggles, it's all part of life. But I think connecting with people who
Can relate to that struggle or who have personally experienced that struggle, it it's a good resource for you to be able to use. And it's also encouraging that they've found a way out. They are on the other side of it. So because they're on the other side of it, that means you'll get on the other side of it as well. It's just going to take time, it's going to take some effort, it's going to take just deliberately working on the process, but that also doesn't mean that you're never going to get out of the rut that you're in. And
For a little while, these last couple months, I felt like even though I knew intuitively in my mind that this was really in the grand scheme of my life, this was just a short-term difficulty that I was going through. It it still felt like my my world was kind of caving in on me. And I just felt very alone and just very disappointed in myself, even though I know I shouldn't be, but I still felt the disappointment that.
Things didn't turn out how I envisioned that they would. And so it was disappointing to come to that realization. But we're on the other side of it now, back in IT, back to doing that kind of work, still prioritizing, training, still prioritizing, dieting, all of that stuff that never went away through this whole process. That's honestly what kept me grounded is still continuing to lift, continuing to
implement some endurance hit training that I will discuss in a future episode. That's kind of a little bit of training that I've been doing differently recently. Prioritizing my diet, just really staying on top of what's important or what has been important and what's gotten me to this point. That's kept me grounded as I've kind of gone through this not so fun period of time over these last few months. So
Ben Todd (28:01.505)
To wrap this up, it's been it's been an interesting journey. Now that I can kind of look back objectively, I've got my pilot license, or at least my first one. I can look back objectively on the process. If I were to do it over knowing what I know now, I would definitely do things differently. But unfortunately, we don't always get the choice of knowing what we know now to apply it to our past selves. We just have to make decisions in the moment.
That you think are right based on your analysis and research and talking to people and whatever other legwork you've done initially, you just have to make those decisions and you have to commit to it. And the result is the result. You'll figure out the result when it happens. You'll you'll get there once you get to that point. But you can't be paralyzed by the fear of the unknown. And I know it's it's it's hard for a lot of people.
It was it's been hard for me too, but I think one of the things that has propelled me forward and continues pro to propel me forward into doing new things is something Alex Ramosy talks about all the time. He says that we're all gonna die. Like we are all here for some undetermined amount of time. And there will be a point in in time where you die.
I don't want to get to that point whenever that comes. It might come next week. It might come in 50 years. I don't know when it's going to come, but it's going to come eventually. I don't want to get to that point and look back on my life, however short or long it has been, and be disappointed in myself for being paralyzed and crippled by fear and not going after the things that I want to do or wanted to do.
And so, yes, I took this risk, I took this leap, quit my job, put all my eggs in the flight training basket, got the flight training done, but also incurred some financial hardship and loss as a result of that decision. So there's always going to be residual consequences. There's always going to be collateral damage in any decision that we make. But you just have to commit to something.
Ben Todd (30:22.881)
What you think is going to be best for you, commit to it, go after it, and make it work.
So, with that, that's what I wanted to conclude with today. I know this is kind of the first episode back in a few months, and this is something that I really am going to commit myself to doing. I don't know the frequency at which episodes are going to be released, but there's this mantra that my mentor, I don't know him personally, but I looked up to him. He's my favorite content creator, Nick Bear. He has this mantra that he has.
Quoted it in his content, in his podcasts, in the book that he wrote. And it says, if it is important to you, you will make time. That could be applied to absolutely any area of your life. If it's important to you to do X, you will make time for it. And I really enjoy recording these podcasts. I enjoy putting this content out. And it is important to me. And so because it is important to me, I am going to make time.
to do this. Again, don't know the frequency at which this is going to happen, but there's a handful of interviews that I have queued up in my head that I'm going that I want to get scheduled. I want to get on the books, get recorded, get out there. I've got a lot of people in my life right now who have really inspiring stories and I think have really, really cool information that they can share to inspire, motivate, uplift, and just help people out.
I think I have a lot of life experience that I can share to again uplift, inspire, motivate, just help people. So because this is important to me, because this is something I really want to dedicate the time and effort to do, I'm going to do it. So with that, that's all I have for you guys today.
Ben Todd (32:24.961)
Don't be afraid to take risks. Don't be afraid to go for the things that you want to go for. Don't be afraid to make decisions with the fear of the unknown of what's going to happen in the future. We only have one life. We have to live it. We have to make the most of it. We'll see you guys next time.