son wants to be a pilot
Never thought I'd post here, I joined so I could search and to get rid of some of the ads.
Anyway, my son (aged 10) has just announced that he wants to be a pilot, apparently he's wanted this for a while, just not told anyone. He's clearly thought about it a lot in terms of what it would be like to work as a pilot and has a list of pros and cons of commercial and military. What he hasn't done is any basic research into how to make this happen (to be fair he has little time on the internet to do this).
From what I know of him, this is a young adult ambition not a kid dream and it's no surprise at all. He's scientifically minded and seems to have the personality and skill set that as he grows up will be good for a pilot.
He's British and UK based, so I'm assuming training in the UK - this seems to be rather costly, does this mean my best advice to him is to get a job the moment he turns 13 (or whatever the legal age is these days)?
Or should we make a thorough investigation of the military route and see if this could be for him.
As a parent what I want to be sure of is that in going down a route he doesn't cut off other options in case he doesn't get in or fails, or whatever.
One thought is to say go to university, get your degree, maybe (hopefully) in engineering then push down the pilot training route.
Please help a clueless mum - my family are teachers, accountants and software engineers!