As has been written before, It's all about what you expect from your flying when you are finished.
I am 35 now, started my ATPL distance learning and renewed my PPL at 32 (got my PPL at 17 but had a long break from flying). I too was in the lucky position to be able to fund almost all my training through savings, although this was modular and cost me around £37,000.
I consider myself to be incredibly lucky that I have some part time flying jobs doing air taxi, para dropping, photo flying etc. It doesn't pay enough to keep my wife and four kids in food and clothes :-) so I am also back at my old job as a teacher, part time, on sessional basis to make ends meet.
Now, the crux of the matter is that I do not for one minute regret paying the money it cost to get my commercial license, I love not having to pay to fly and actually getting (very little :-) money for it.
On the other hand, any dreams I might have had of flying right hand side of a big jet are, to be realistic, going to be very difficult to realize. The problem with being "older" especially at this time, is that the clock is really against us.
I know people have mentioned friends at 40 and older getting jobs a few years ago, but that was unfortunately a few years ago, times are very different just now, although there will of course always be a few lucky exeptions.
Ryanair's self sponsored scheme and Easyjet through CTC seem to be concentrating on the under 30's generation these days effectively ending the only route for low houred wannabies over 30 at this time (this of course could change in the future)
The problem with the traditional route of building hours via GA flying and/or instructing is that to gain the couple of thousand hours required before the other companies will look at your CV is going to take a few years, at which time we are pushing 40, where again time is against us.
The alternative is, of course, to jump the que and pay a type rating and then buy 500 hours on that type, that is, of course, a totally different argument for another thread and no guarantee of success!
I love the flying I do, every day I meet new people and learn something new, I also know that the investment I made in my training will probably never pay off in terms of wages, I would have been better sticking with my steady full time £35,000 a year teaching job with good pension. BUT, life is short and I enjoy it much more when I am flying two or three times a week.
So we are back to the original question, what do you expect from your flying?
The money spent on an integrated course would get you a share in a nice aircraft and lots of great flying trips with friends and family, on the other hand, flying commercially is challenging and very rewarding.
good luck
regards
D-G
PS, you mention integrated because of the time factor, you can actually do it quicker modular than you can integrated.
Last edited by Dane-Ger; 1st Oct 2010 at 19:46.