Should we use DC money?

[Barongreenback87]

DC is 17. When he turns 18 he has £12k coming to him. £6k in savings from us and the same about from child trust fund.

He wants to do his private pilots licence. I have no idea if this will ever lead anywhere long term. He has SEN. It's his dream. The licence course is £11.5k. We don't have that kind of money.

I've suggested he uses £6k of own money and we will find the other half.

Thoughts ?.

I feel terrible, but this is the only way we can afford it

He maybe would need to learn how to drive first. At only 17 - there’s no way it’s practical for him to learn how to fly a plane.

I can't see this working for him as he is likely to have a meltdown over exams,listening to instructions
Kindly I don't think he'd cope and it's setting him up to fail

My BIL tried to qualify as a commercial pilot. The exams are insane and even though he's very clever the maths required is mad. Could you try getting him a tutor for a difficult element and doing mock exams to see if it's even feasible or is this a case of him needing to see for himself it's not doable?

There is a charity called Aerobility that offer the opportunity for disabled people to fly a plane. Based at Blackbushe, Hampshire. Might be worth investigating?

From what you’ve said this doesn’t sound very realistic and I’d be reluctant to spend any money on it at this stage.

What's the plan after the course? If you spend the money there are two outcomes - he passes or he fails. If he passes then what? Wont he need to do a certain number of hours each year to keep the licence? Or is he just putting the certificate on the wall - expensive poster!

I'm guessing it's likely he'll never make this goal, however there is no reason he cannot aspire to do it - and in order to do so he needs to work on various skills in order to get there or get as near as he can. Quite probably along the way he may find it's either not what he actually wants to do - or that there is something else he'd rather do instead. No reason he cannot aspire and take the baby steps I suggested or similar steps towards the goal of a PPL - because they're all skills needed for life in general or making his life in general easier to manage like driving or going in shops, or he will have the maths and English or perhaps some other qualifications to get a different job. .

I'm sure OP will kindly tell him it won't be an easy journey, he'll have to work hard to get there, but that it won't be the end of the world if he doesn't get quite that far because if he has (the various skills/qualifications obtained en route) , there will be plenty of other things/opportunities he could do instead that might interest him, and he might find he prefers to do.

My aforementioned brother got his PPL, and did indeed do a good few hours an small plane taxi-ing services, somehow ending up shuffling tennis (brats he called them - famous German players particularly, all with attitude, of the 1980s ) to and from Germany/Wimbledon/France etc.
Decided he didn't actually want to be a commercial pilot after all, and got a completely unrelated civil service job (that included lots of maths) from which he's just retired with a massive pension pot - he sold his share of the plane he'd invested in, and saved in pension rather than spend on keeping his PPL up (and he's quite a few years younger than me).