Following a pattern that was commented on earlier in this thread, I am 34 and currently working in IT, and am fully intending to become a CPL - it's the best feeling I've had being up there with all those
other nuts flying in loose formation. Someone told me that old light flingwings were as rough as a badger's wotsits, but my last flight in an old Westland Scout AH1 was so smooth it felt like I was floating
I currently work in IT so I can pay for this - my intention is that one day I will only ever need to touch a computer to log a flight plan and check the METARs.
However, I fully understand that it will cost a fortune, and that I may not be able to give up working on other people's IT systems
- but my wife and I have discussed it, and she keeps reminding me what it's all for when I get tired from my 9-5 (or too often it's 5am-2am). We don't have any kids, and our house in Edinburgh is our pension - when we retire it's going to get sold, and we'll rent a flat in whatever part of the workd we want to live in.
I am lucky in that I have a wonderfully supportive wife (who would also love to live in NZ, Colorado or West Canada - she loves painting pictures of the mountains), no kids, a portable skill so that if the flying hits a sticky patch I won't have to flip burgers, and a plan for retirement.
And all so I can (one day) maybe buy myself a 'copter I've wanted since I was 10 - a UH1 or an OH6/MD500.
I've spoken to many people on the phone from various schools and comanies, and at the various airshows, and after the inevitable comments of "Good - you want to become a REAL pilot" they all tell me to have a backup plan. They also invariably said that the media hype about a massive shortage of pilots accross the industry wasn't materialising yet, but looks like it will in 2 years.
Haven't they said this every 2 years for the last 10?
I find it ironic that you have to be rich to start with, and then progress to becoming a broke retired pilot - life is supposed to be the other way around.
One last point on the perceived problem of mature students learning new things :
From the age of about 2, until you leave the education system (either high school or university) you are constantly learning, and you are used to this. If you then spend time away from that sort of environment then it can be very easy to forget HOW to learn - and being able to learn is a skill.
If you are self-studying for the PPL/CPL/CFI/IR etc etc then you may think you are doing OK, but the information may not be being fully retained.
A friend of mine who took a Open University (distance learning) degree course here in the UK as a mature student had some trouble with this, so what he did was enrole for a night-school course. This course was in something unrelated, but it was something interested him. Having the teacher there in front of him at night-school meant that he started to get used to being in the 'learning' frame of mind, and he found that it helped his self-studying immensely at home.
Anyway, this has been a bit of a ramble, so I'll leave it there for now.
Reuben