Originally Posted by
Chris the Robot
I didn't have the luxury of living at home since my parents moved around quite a bit before retiring in the sticks. I'm very reluctant to borrow, there's probably a fair few who did in Autumn 2019 who then lost the day job/had a severely reduced income during the pandemic. I wonder where they are now? What I do have though is an enjoyable non-aviation career which I'd want to do for the next 35 years if aeroplanes didn't exist.
What I'd do is go part-time after another couple of years in my current job at the tail-end of the inbound recession and possibly do modular then. If there's lots of fully-funded schemes it may be better to wait a bit longer, we'll see.
As above, there is lots of schemes available right now - you should be applying now if you have the opportunity to do it. If family or work isn't a blocker to applying to the schemes, I wouldn't suggest waiting / holding off for the "perfect scenario" - it won't happen. If you're serious about doing it, it's never been better in terms of recruitment and opportunity of these schemes.
Don't leave it too late, to when you might have a family, people dependant on your income and actually you can't disappear for 6 months for sunny weather flying (trust me, I know what I'm talking about).
There is nothing wrong with going modular, you just need to accept that you will be paying all of the cost yourself. It seems to be pretty common now that most don't want more then 3 different ATO's, expect 85%+ on ATPLs and first time on IR.