You're young, logged hours, but no savings

Let's say you're 17, hours logged around 10, expecting decent high‑school qualifications, but feel like the money you have saved will soon run out and your progress might decline in the long run. I was exactly this person 20 years ago.

Firstly, try out the budget calculator on the home page! If you don't have secured finance, this needs to be a plan for the long game, not a short injection of cash with huge breaks in between!

Steph had a little black notebook which became her bible. She noted every scholarship, cost to attend, how many years it had been running for, as well as typical age, flying hours, qualifications and standout attributes of the former winners. She also checked every degree course she applied to, the flying qualifications she would achieve as part of that course, the cost and where the gliding club was for each of those universities.

In the beginning Steph applied for any and every scholarship and wasted a lot of money to be told the same thing - she wasn't in the top few percent for the aptitude tests. She was annoyed that she'd spent so much flying money on so many aptitude tests and scholarship shortlists, especially dry cleaning and train tickets! (Hint to airlines - a 30‑min loggable check flight in the sim as an aptitude test would make genuine pilots very happy!)

Hint - the guy who dropped out of my uni course early and the guy who failed the final exams are both flying as successful captains with reputable airlines. Fortunately a few of the aptitude test centres gave me really good feedback with actionable points to work on. So I added those points to my book and began creating a plan to improve myself in those areas, and to be a better applicant for the next one.

The best way to get experience in a wide range of disciplines is to do volunteering in an area you've never worked before and to challenge yourself. Volunteering organisations are usually very happy to let young people get involved, especially when they have the initiative to make reasonably wise and mature decisions.

Steph documented each stint of volunteering, eventually logging hundreds of hours across many organisations. This also became a blessing in interviews as she had many different experiences and challenges to talk about. She promised herself she would only apply for a scholarship if she was quietly confident of making it to the end.