Took me 10 years to get myself into the shinny jets, and the road was long, mainly by choice, but the adventure along the way, made the day's today all worth the while!
I started out instructing... I feel that this is a good head start into the scene because you are supervised constantly by more experienced Grade 1's and the CFI, plus the student who is paying a lot of money to learn, will let the CFI know ASAP if he is not happy with the standard of professionalism being showm to them. Instructing keeps you on your toes, it does teach you how to fly again, and the pleasure that you will get from seeing your students learn and yourself progressing through to the higher ranks of hopefully a Grade One, and maybe even Multi Teaching is invaluable!
I then left to go do some charter. To be honest, some of the greatest flying known to man! The freedom, the larger more sophisticated machinery, the decisions you need to make, and the now real commercial pressures that you take in your stride. Charter helps to refine the experience that you already have behind you. But starting out with Charter will prove to be a great learning experience all the same. Charter can be done out of the top end of Oz (FNQ, NT, WA) then perhaps back to a capital city to continue with charter or maybe moving onto RPT.
From here you should be nicely experienced with the hours and the ATPL's to start applying to airlines. I flew high capacity RPT turboprops around for a while, and again, the flying was insane! Nice to have real engineering support, ground staff, flight attendants etc etc... makes flying seem real again. To be honest, I miss it.
Moved onto the airlines, I hardly fly, heaps of study, it's more of a lifestyle, but like I said at the start, looking back it makes the journey worth while, I have no complaints. The fliyng is wonderful, when you go flying, the lifestyle is just unbeatable, home a lot more than I ever have been...
Looking back, Regional flying was great, and I do miss it, sometime I wish I had stayed there. But if I did, I would always want to know what the airlines were all about...
Food for thought about the big decisions you're about to make... good luck with it
