I passed 20,000hours last year after commencing flying 45 years ago at the age of 17. However there was a 4 year interruption in my flying career after spending 10 years as a military pilot (during which I only flew just over 2000 hours) so my total flying career to earn a crust is 41 years
Had I not been employed to dodge bullets while flying for the taxpayer and had I not taken 4 years out of flying, I estimate that I would have reached 25,000 hours before retiring in 2014. Sigh !
But there is another colleague still flying helicopters from Scatsta who passed 20,000 one year before me. Even so, we're in a quite exclusive club in the helicopter world.
Fixed-wing guys can easily pass 30,000 hours in their careers, but then they're not really flying for most of their time sitting in the flight deck and bitching about expenses/security/rosters/EASA/seniority/pensions etc. Just kidding !