Pilot careers

I would consider it in my 20’s, but not 40’s. I think the training cost would far outway the salary. Having just retrurned from a trip to Nice, I asked myself yesterday whilst at 38000 feet, would I like to be up front doing a commercial pilots job and my answer to my thoughts were no, the novelty would soon wear thin and reality kick in and you are just hauling another bunch of pax to a lovely destination, but they are on holiday not you. So go get your ppl and fly for fun instead of having to deal with the hassles that go along with commercial or get a job flying with DHL or the like as cargo doesn’t talk back.

……..I’m not a pilot but I have worked in flight ops for the last 25 years.

A well respected friend quoted me the other day that in Europe there are over 600 applicants per jet job at the moment and things are set to get worse.

Do not even think about it………

It is possible with dedication and perseverance. You might however find that a lot of younger guys will be senior to you when you get a job. To some it will make a difference, others not. Good luck.

It is not too late, however, you can expect to have to pay a lot of money to get into it. At the end of the course there will be no guarantee of a job. The jobs available to the majority of new pilots are relatively low paid but do allow you to build experience, you are unlikely to get a job with the major players immediately if at all. Finally if you do get in to a big company, seniority means that it may be a long time to command.

I don’t mean to sound negative, flying is a fantastic career but you must be aware it is a lot of hard work and lady luck will play her part in it. You ask any pilot and there is an element of being in the right place at the right time. Having said all of that if you are happy with the cost and work involved there are few jobs that are quite so rewarding.

You might do better asking the question on the pilot training forums over on PPRuNe, as they tend to be more career pilot oriented, but here’s my thoughts…

Its certainly doable, but its likely you are going to have to pay for most if not all of it yourself. Firstly think about where you want to get to though – a pilot career can be anything between an instructor at a flight school, through air taxis, night cargo, exec jets and airlines.

The airline industry isn’t best positioned to be sponsoring / paying for pilot training right now, and some of the young guys who’ve already spent the time and money on basic training are even having to go down the pay-to-fly route (i.e. where the candidate pays to fly with an airline until they’ve got a certain level of experience). Also consider that getting to captain on anything air transport related is probably at least five years or more away, and that instructors through air taxis and even many first-officers aren’t necessarily well remunderated, so the better money could be quite a while away.

But if its a dream to fly for a living that you want to achieve and you’re up for paying for PPL, Multi, Instrument, CPL, and for airlines possibly a frozen ATLP, multi-crew and maybe even a type rating (I’d guess realistically £50k+ and a year or more, and maybe not earning whilst you’re doing it), then go for it.

Andy