Imagine.
Please don`t take my earlier post personally. You just managed to hit on a raw nerve whilst I was rather `tired and emotional`. (To translate that phrase into English, you will need to lurk on the military forum for a while.)
Whirly and Beethoven, in my defence:-
`Always interested`, in my book, means that you are sufficiently interested in a subject to read the odd book and pick up the occasional magazine. A little more enthusiasm would have led to, in the case of flying in particular, to visits to flying clubs or schools or maybe visits to a Gliding club or membership of the ATC.
Your case was a little different Whirly, in that you took a lesson on a whim and got hooked so you didn`t have any previous background.
Now, with what I have just said in mind, re-read the original post and it comes out as follows:-
First paragraph.
I think being an Airline Pilot would be cool. I`m not really interested in flying per se or I would have done something about it by now. This university lark isn`t as much fun as I thought it would be. I`ve done a whole term and I think I might give up now.
Second paragraph.
As I`ve only just thought about being a pilot, the only site I could think of to look at is the B.A. one and there wasn`t a button to click to join up.
Third paragraph.
Someone please tell me that my barely adequate qualifications are just what the Airlines want.
Etc.,etc..
On the other hand,( heads up Beethoven) it was good to read a post in respectable English, with no grammatical errors.
You may think that this is trivial, but it really worries me that the guy flying over my head with an aircraft full of military nastiness, or the guy up front, taking me and 400 other trusting people across the Atlantic in an aircraft full of computers and dials and check lists and rules and regulations, cannot write in his own language after practising it every day for at least twenty years.
I expect to get flamed again but that`s the way I read it.
Whirly.
A genuine and relevant question would go along the lines of:- I have read this and I have read that and they differ here. Which one is right or is there a Third Way?
If I were you, I wouldn`t boast about being a Psycho Grad or about being an Occupational Psychologist.
Mike W
Imagine.
To answer a part of your question, no you do not need qualifications beyond GCSE in maths or Physics but you will need ability in them far beyond. The exams for ATPL are not easy. Flying the aircraft is the easy bit. I know very intelligent people who have successfully passed the flying part of the course and have not managed to pass all the exams.
Mike W