I dont think that anyone finds this easy at all, whichever route you take. The goalposts are always moving and soif you have a family in tow and all the other normal life things going on, it does make life excrutiating.
I as no doubt as many others have done, have gone down the self improver route, regularly missed the peak demand through insufficient experience or wrong type of experience only to find that when I have gained it, there has either been a world wide glut of pilots, a downturn through catastrophic events or some other reason.
Regularly, people on the forum encourage you to keep trying. There will be a way of doing this if it really is what you want to do. It becomes an inbuilt drive that motivates you through the hardest of times.
I truly beleive that the industry is as alive as I have ever seen it. I have an age issue at 46 and I find myself getting interviews all over the place.
I am qualified to instruct at all levels but this is still piston hours and wont be what is required by many outfits. I believe that the experience counts when the s**t hits the fan but that is only my opinion and may not be that of many others.
I think that there are many jobs going at all levels but also many applicants and luck will play a significant part as well as recommendations etc.
I reckon that we all feel that what we are doing is crazy from time to time and if a psychologist got hold of us would probably bar us from a flight deck for life (in fact crayons might get limited).
It boils down to what makes you happy and sorting out perceptions from reallity when stress and compulsion to become "" drive all the sanity from us.
You have to ask yourself if you are prepared still to continue the slog with no guarantees and bear the price or whether you already have what you are looking for in terms of quality of life.
If you are still compelled to carry on, you couldn't pick a better time to give it another go. It may take quite some financial risk and no doubt many have tried and failed with disastrous consequences.............choices............decisions....... .yada yada!
I think that the best advice I could give is to focus on what is really most likely to come to fruition, however with the industry in its current state, who knows what you might get.
What are your experience levels?
