Just to add if you any good in Ops it will be a cold day in hell before the ops director will release you from there.
In some ways training up an ops staff member is a bigger pain in the arse although cheaper than a pilot. If they then have the right "head" on them that means they are good at it, as a resource you are far better in the company as a Ops controller than pilot. They have suitable candidates coming out of there ears for the RHS. A good ops controller that can keep there cool and still have attention to detail and spot that a cunning plan is going to cause even more issues in 1/2/5days/2weeks time, worth thier weight in gold.