Such a great post Dutch!
Objection, your honour!
The question is "would you do it again?", this is not about whining.
Our dutch friend said "flying is fantastic". That is the good part about the job. A year has about 2000 working hours, so when one flies 500 hours a year it means 1500 hours have to be filled with something else.That might well be sitting behind a desk.
We do not know for how long our friend has been in aviation.
When the uninformed noob is questioned about what field of helicopters he wants to be in the 2 favourite answers you'll get are
a) "Rescue pilot"
b) "Offshore flying"
Those two are the ones where the decent money is and the good working hours are.
The rest of us works 60 to 80 hour weeks illegally, is on duty 330 days per year and makes less money than a brick layer in a 40 hour week.
There is no time for family and the divorce rates are high.
Lot's of us are still in it because it's too late to bail out after two decades or more in the saddle.
With 150k Euros in your pocket you're better off buying a house so you never have to pay rent again and the bank can't touch you because you have NO loan. Come Friday noon you go home, get on your motorcycle and ride into the weekend.
This is not about whining...