Originally Posted by
macdo
This is a 'heart or head' question. We mostly realise that in commercial flying lifestyle is the most precious factor the older you become, especially when wife/family issues compete for our attention and money. Having done everything from GA to Widebody long haul, I'm glad to have done the GA when I was young and SH when I had a young family and LH now I'm older. 3 days on a Caribbean layover beats 6 sector turboprop days when you are knocking 60!
So, heart says KingAir, head says a320. The overarching fact is that it is much easier to go back down the aviation feeding chain, than it is to go up it.
Your last sentence may be theoretically true, but how many have you known that have actually gone that way rather than simply talk about it?
The bolded sentence maybe to your liking, but perhaps not to all of us. It may sound like a glamorous tv advert to a young single guy, but to me it sounds more like a pain in the proverbial. I’m 58 now, and haven’t flown since I had a stroke eight years ago, that has allowed me a lot of time to ponder this sort of thing. You forget to mention the likely deep night flight back from the Caribbean, at 58 I think that alone would balance out the positives!
The hours between 11 and 7 are definitely not meant for flying when over the age of 40! (In my opinion). As you know, I’ve done my fair share of night flying around Europe in King Airs (National) and night Tenerife’s in Boeing’s (Britannia)as well as a taste of long haul, which inevitably means working round the clock.
I think the success or otherwise of this decision will depend a lot on the OPs nature.
Looking back, I can see that I was blinded by ambition, to get into the left seat of a jet asap, or any seat of a jet!! It wasn’t money that drove me, I don’t really know what it was, possibly ego? I now wish I had really slowed down to enjoy the journey more, rather than the end game, which turned out not to be all I hoped it might - did I really think about it? When I ‘eventually’ arrived, I had nowhere to go, I got bored!
The lowcost airlines have certainly changed things. Paying a lot of dough to get into the right seat of a 320 or 737, then the potential to earn enough back is possible if you are sensible. I wasn’t. I watched the young guys get their commands with 3000hrs or even less, where I had taken nearly 7k to get a direct entry command with Easy, coming as a FO from the charter world. It made me think, where now for these youngsters in their 20s?
I might be looking back through rose tinted glasses at things in some ways. I would say follow your heart rather than your head. It may mean you don’t end up with a great pension, or a Porsche as a second car. But I think you will remember more of the flying you do, and more of the people you meet along the way. You should be comfy enough with a BMW, and a modest detached house. I guess it can be summed up by asking if you would prefer dinking weak coffee that means the tin lasts longer or strong coffee that you enjoy and to hell with what happens when it runs out!
Then again, it’s a great feeling lining up, standing them up and pressing TOGA in a big jet!
Life is a gift, live for today. Anything might happen!
(Are you who I think you are, G?)