Originally Posted by
VariablePitchP
Rubbish. You got your licence close to the 15 years ago in a completely different environment. As has been said, not everyone has the aptitude to actually be a pilot.
If you come out of Modular training there are options everywhere. BA, TUI, Loganair etc etc. and those are just the advertised ones, that’s not including instruction jobs, pilot apprentice schemes etc etc. I get why you’re bitter, but don’t try and project that onto people in a totally different scenario to you.
The getting other experience first, complete waste of time and money. Spend five years learning to be an accountant. Why? For the 12 months where you might be waiting for a job. Great, you’ve just bought £50K of student debt and 5 less years making £150-200K as a training captain at the top of your career.
There are thousands of Modular airline pilots in the uk alone. At some point you need to let it go mate.
The poster was asking about job prospects. I shared my experience. There are many that have succeeded and share that experience I have no issue with being the other sense of perspective. Survivorship bias is a thing.
I was pretty straight up on my advice then gave an opinion if they decided they want to stick with it. I wouldn’t say that was unreasonable. They know their own personal abilities and determination and scenario, we can’t - but if there was anyone like me in that same scenario on deciding what to do - I wish there was a voice like mine to have listened to.
From my experience I wish I got some other skills to fall back on. Now I am playing catch up with normal life.
Maybe I’ll get back into it, but at least I can do it knowing I have other skills I can use whilst revalidating or in a downturn or as side hustle while buzzing around instructing. I don’t see how having a sense of realism is being bitter.
There are 1000s of pilots, you are right and a cursory look on linkedin shows many fATPL doing other things, could be temporary, I hope so. But also theres not exactly easy to find data on the subject which is why people come here in the first place.
I would never in good conscience advise anyone to spend that amount of money to get into it though. It’s my opinion. I share it so others can learn from it and make the right choice for them. Sometimes the best decision is to not take off at all. Is that not the thought process pilots should have?