Am I too late?

[Mark Wannabe]

I am 35 years old and looking for a complete career change. I left school to take up a career in the heating and air conditioning industry which has ultimately ended in me owning my own successful business.
However I have now reached the point where my chosen career does not fulfill me any longer (my wife calls it my mid life crisis, whatever) so I am researching the prospect of training to be a commercial pilot.
This is not a whim as a youngster I flew Chipmunks in the ATC and since have flow with several friends in Pipers and more recently a Yak.
Flying is what I love and I wish to make a career of it, the big question is "Have I left too late".

This is my first postal on this site so guys (and gals) please be kind.

Mark

[Farrell]

No, it's never too late! I'm 32 in June and only beginning to get my act together now. You'll find lots of encouragement here and also a glimpse into what it's really like to fly full-time.

I came here a year ago with the same question, and can tell you for sure that it's not too late to do your training!

[737KM]

Hi,

To be honest with your question, i know a mother of two who is 46 years old. She was a flight instructor and now is right seat flying 146's for an airline. I dont think age is a huge factor.

Hope this helps.......

[Andy_R]

I'm 40 this year, mid life crisis obviously looming large - sent my deposit and entrance exam off to London Met today. Not sure about my sanity but I don't want to die wishing I had tried.

[Sensible]

Flying is a dream, the HEVAC industry is a reality. The fact is that your earning potential is far greater in HEVAC than professional flying. You really need to keep your mid life crisis under control unless you can cope with a very very substantial salary cut!. Trust me, I've been there!

[helio eng]

go for it im doing helicopter commercial at 41, be positive, never said it was gonna be easy

[Flypuppy]

The dream is great, the flying is rewarding and demanding, the training is stressful, the groundschool is misery. The reality sucks.

Assuming you have no PPL you will be looking at shelling out between £45,000 and £75,000 on training (depending what you chose to do modular/integrated etc etc).

Since it is now the vouge to buy a type rating you will need to add another £15,000 - £25,000 to your training bill.

You will also need to spend some money on living costs if you choose a school away from home, so assuming you dont want to live in a tent and eat cold Lidl own brand baked beans, add another £8,000 to £12,000 to your total.

Dont forget that life goes on while you are sweating away at training to become a pilot, if your business can run without you and you maintain an income, then you are in a strong position. If not, remember to budget for things like paying the mortgage, house insurance, food for the wife and kids and some emergency money set aside for things like the washing machine breaking down.

Do the sums and work out how much money you will need.

Now look at PPJN (Regional) (http://www.ppjn.com/operatorlist.php?reg=Europe&type=Regional) where you are most likely to get a start as a commercial pilot. Starting salaries average at approx £22,000 per year.

You really really will want to do this. If you look at this project from a financial viewpoint it makes no sense whatsoever. Chances are it will take 5-7 years to recover what you invest in this training.

Make sure you fully brief your missus on how much it will affect family life. You are likely to be stressed in ways you have not experienced before. You are going to be spending money like water once you get to the CPL/IR stage (approx £5 per airbourne minute) and all on the gamble that you will get a job.

Alternatively, you could spend a similar amount of money on a Jet Provost (http://www.everettaero.com/JetProvost.grafi.html) and fly a jet whenever you feel like it. ;)

I don't mean to put you off, and I hope I haven't, but you need to be realistic about what lies in store. Consider your options and try to keep everything in perspective. It isn't all hot and cold running hosties and night stops in the Bahamas.....

[helio eng]

Cant fault what Flypuppy says, its a hard slog, the maths just dos'nt stack up, I know its take me a long time to get my money back, if at all, commercial helicopter pilots earn even less, and its oversubscribed, just do the research before training starts, the news is pretty depressing.

sometimes I wish I stopped at the PPL H stage, but im pretty committed now, I know its gonna be hard and living on baked beans is getting boring, its upseting when my family have to go without and Im stumping up thousands in my training bills, thats heart breaking.

But inside theres something telling me it's gonna be ok, I think it's this factor that drives people on in this industry, we must be mad, lemin airways

[Curvature]

Hi Mark Wannabe,

Although the previous posts outline the reality of the state of the industry at present, to paraphrase Cloud69
"you don't want to die wishing you had tried".

This type of motivation is pretty powerful and I think personally that age 35 is certainly not too old.

I am 32 and with only around 320 hrs I am confident of achieving my dream of an airline slot.

A friend of mine is 39, started training at the age of 34 and is now a second officer with Cathay Pacific. He told me their are a few guys in their forties who also started with him.

There will always be doubters, and people you would like to tell you its a pipedream.


However,if you can stomach the cost and the study required, I say Go for it Mate!

Cheers
Curvature
:ok:

[Hotel Mike]

Dear Mark Wannabe
I read SENSIBLE'S remarks and have to say that they are very sensible, and I'm glad that you are getting both sides of the coin.
However, I believe that people will only, can only, advise you based on their own experiences.
If I knew you, I would be very reluctant to encourage you to go for it in case you failed. The truth is you have REALLY got to WANT to be a commercial pilot to make it.
But here is my short story; no advice, just my story.
When I was thirty six, someone gave me his secret to success. He said, "Decide today what is the ONE thing that you most enjoy doing in your life. Once you have decided that, invest every single day of your life in that ONE thing. Only two things can happen: You will either be a huge success, or you will have at least spent your life doing the ONE thing that you most enjoy."
I am now flying for a major UK airline. I finally got my lucky break at the age of thirty nine. Medical willing, I have at least twenty one years of service ahead of me.
Are you too late? NO.
Should you go for it? It's up to you.
Good Luck

[Megaton]

Left engineering job one week. Started with airline 9 days later at age 37. It's not easy but it's not impossible either.

[scroggs]

Whether you're too late or not depends entirely on your aspirations, your determination, your luck, and your capacity for work.

Most people here can only post of their own experiences - and any advice they give will be heavily influenced by those experiences and their remaining hopes. Thus those over-30s still in the training system want you to go for it whatever, because that's what they want to hear for thmselves; those who've succeeded in entering commercial aviation will sound a more cautious note - because they know how hard it really is - but will be generally encouraging; those who have completed training but have not found a job (but are still hopeful) will display a level of cynicism directly proportional to the time they've been job searching; and those who have given up (who knows how many?) won't be looking here and therefore won't post...

So what to do? Well, I'm sure you understand that the later you leave it the less likely it is that you'll get that A380 command. It may not be impossible, but it's less and less likely. So you must tailor your expectations to reality. You must then decide whether the realistic expectations can match your aspirations - and you need to be fairly precise about what these are, as the non-specific target 'to fly commercially' is too woolly to focus on as an ambition.

You will need the ability to keep an eye on your overall target while you are neck deep in the swamp of training and examination-chasing, and you will need to be flexible enough to alter your expectations as events unfold, both in the overall aviation market and in your personal life. Your chances of success are hugely influenced by the genuine support (or lack of it) of those around you. If you have a wife and family, and they don't support you 100%, your chances of either getting a flying career and/or making a long and happy marriage are seriously compromised. If it came to a choice, which would you rather give up - flying, or the family? This is not a trivial or fascetious question - plenty of pilots have lost their families along the way, myself included, because their single-minded pursuit of their ambition took priority. Is it worth it? Only you can say.

So, it can be done. There are no guarantees, and the costs, finacial and personal, can be huge. You could be a B744 pilot by 45 - or you could be divorced, broke and back in rented bedsits if it all goes against you. How much risk are you prepared to take?

Scroggs

[Mark Wannabe]

I’m very grateful for all of your comments. A mixed bag really as I expected.
The overwhelming message I am getting is that the future prospects are that should I look to fulfill my ambition I am destined to suffer financial hardship, a possible divorce (now wouldn’t that be costly?), my children not recognising me when I walk through the door, a torturous time in ground school and after all that no guarantee of a job.

However and it’s a big however I cant ignore the one comment Cloud69 made, what if I die thinking I wish I tried?
Recently suffering a bereavement in the family it does make you sit and ponder, “we aint on this planet long” why plod along doing what you think is the sensible thing and regretting it later.

Anyway without getting to philosophical on you all, down to practicalities.

I plan to take six months to take my PPL whilst sorting out my affairs and try to sell my business. After that I will be looking for a ground school for my ATPL/CPL.
I am taking a tour of BCFTC in Bournemouth in a fortnight. Have any of you had any experience of this school.

Thanks again for all your comments and hope to speak to you all again in the future.

Kind regards
Mark Wannabe

[flaps now]

Hi

I'm 34 this year. Got my PPL just before Xmas and im now doing the Ground school from home. Hopefully have everything done this time next year (he says smiling) and then enter the job market.:ugh: Gonna cost me loads but like the others I say "Regret the things you do..Not the things you dont"

The very best of luck.. See you up there:O

Flaps

[Andy_R]

Mark Wanabee is there no way you can keep the company going whilst you train. Then IF it all goes tits up at least you have something to fall back on.

what if I die thinking I wish I tried? was the one thing that made up my mind after considering all the other eventualities. It has taken a lot of mind and soul searching coupled with a genuine love of flying (yes I know the disadvantages of commercial flying), but at the end of the day that was the question I wanted to answer.

Endless hours of thinking and deliberating.

Now I have decided that now is the time to do it I feel excited and full of nervous anticipation.

At the end of the day I will be happy with a turboprop job, though won't deny that if the chance came up to fly something faster/bigger then I would grab it.

If a job in this business never materialises then I will have a lot more knowledge than I have now with my 150 hour PPL and I will be a far better pilot, so can't lose anything but money.

Good luck

Andy

[troy_99992000]

Hi Mark Wannabe,

Just after reading you post. You questions are exactly what I have researched only recently. The first commercial pilot I got advice from gave me this answer about my age (In my Late thirties), and is it too late?
His opening answer was;

“You have to have lots of money and quite be mad old chap!”

So far I may qualify for both! And may others, as I’ve discovered.
I have spoken to lots of airline recruitment companies and pilots themselves and one thing is for sure, age is not a problem. Also, and most importantly, it is very apparent to me that this is the best time to learn. I’ve been told from numerous sources that there will be a shortage of pilots in the next few years. After visiting many training facilities in the UK, only recently, I found that they are finding it hard to hold onto pilot instructors, as they’ve been sucked up by the airlines. Do correct me it I’m wrong anyone.

Personally, I left a successful well paid career one day and booked my first flying lesson, because I realized that I will be in a dull office for the rest of my life, if I do nothing about it. It’s really a question of time, do you want more money for an unfulfilled day, or less money for a thrilling day? I believe however, that it will payoff financially in the end.

I’ve just reached my first hurdle, my PPL flight test! I’m sure this is the first of many, but here is a bit of advice to start you off. When you start your PPL training, make sure you get a class one instructor. I only say this, because when I went for my first solo in the circuit, I was passed around several class one instructors in order to check me out for my solo. Each one of them had different methods of doing the circuits, etc, and this caused confusion for me, and many of my flying piers! This cost money and time. I’m getting the same problems now while being checked out for my PPL Flight test.
Also take the PPL seriously, all of the learning, both in the air and on the ground will help you through the ATPL’s I’m told.

I’m sure your aware the importance of getting you Class One Medical! Don’t do anything until you have that first!!

Anyhow, If you’ve plenty of cash, a will to bet £100,000 grand or so on your abilities, balls, and a backup plan, why wait? You could be trapped in an office forever!

[Bruno Silva]

Hi Mark,

I´m just twenty years old, haven´t got a wife or kids to loose neither a house to pay the rent...BUT I can tell you one thing I know, and that is: WE ONLY LIVE ONCE!!!! And for a short time I may say.

I see my parents going to their works everydays to earn just enough money to pay their bills at the end of the month and I get sad...I imagine their dreams when they were my age and now look at them, waking everydays knowing their stupid works are waiting for them for the rest of their lifes!!:(
That´s not living, that´s surviving!:mad:
Well I want to live, not to survive and that´s what gives me strenght to leave my family, friends, and my country because of a dream, a dream of being a pilot!
If I don´t manage to be that at least my conscience will be in peace cause I know I tried to do what I wanted...

So Mark I´m not saying you to do or not to do...I´m just saying sometimes we have to follow our heart cause like I said we only live once!

Take care and good luck!

P.S. I´m sorry if i´m wrong but I´m only 20!