Funding

This post is fairly sparse at the moment, I'll be updating this with my experience of the funding options and how I personally (hopefully) secure the funds.

Now this is the hard part, To keep the flow of this blog I'll be updating this post and leaving it after the  aptitude tests instead of making new postings.

Options 
Personal funding is probably the safest way to cover the cost of your course, but isn't necessarily going to be an option for the vast majority of us, certainly not myself.
If this was the route you wanted to go down, you'll need to start saving early as you're looking around £80,000 to fund your course. So unless you're in a high paid job then you'll be looking at a few years worth of hard saving to cover this all by yourself, so it's likely that you will need to cover at least some of the funds from an alternative source.

Family unfortunately isn't an option for me personally as my parents aren't in a position financially to be able to lend me the amounts of money required for the course.
However for those of you reading this looking to do a course, family is by far the easiest way and I'll explain why. Your family will have an emotional stake in your success in this course regardless and will want nothing more than to see you succeed and as such will be more willing than a financial institution to lend you money, even if it means them going via a bank to do so. This has many advantages for you as a trainee pilot, you personally have less to worry about while you are studying, you won't necessarily be tied down to an immediate payment schedule if your parents can afford to keep you going till you qualify and let's face it, your parents aren't going to let you slack off and not get yourself a job at the end of it.

Financial institutions are almost certainly going to be involved in your life as a trainee pilot at some point and for the majority people will potentially be the largest source of funding, certainly for those that aren't able to be supported by their family.

Sponsorships have been intentionally left till the last option in my list. They shouldn't be relied upon to fund your course as there is so much small print and quite a high risk carried with such schemes if you're not careful.
The other reason I have left his option till last is you will still need to cover the large majority of your funds from elsewhere and usually prove to the school/sponsor, that you can afford to pay for the full course without these funds anyway, as there is always the risk of not meeting the sponsorship terms and losing your eligibility to the funding.