Training
Your replies make interesting reading, if a little depressing. To be honest my position is slightly odd in that I walked out of a well paid IT job a few months ago with severence.
I spent ages debating whether to take a career break or actually leave but in the end decided to leave. Hindsight being what it is that decision may now look rather questionable but was based on a feeling that some airlines seem to favoured integrated courses. My advancing years were also a factor in that decision and if I was 22 I would definately have bided my time!
Having burned a significant hole in my severence cheque since leaving my options are now essentially:
Commence full time training
Continue to develop an existing income stream from freelance writing for magazines which will never pay all that well but might reach the level where I'm not dipping into my severence. I could then try and do part time modular or just wait before doing an ab-initio course.
Get IT Contracts (not easy in the current climate)
Abandon all hope of being a pilot and go and get another office job for the next 25 years and wait for a gold watch!
I've known I wanted to fly for an airline since I was 4 years old. My Father was Cabin Crew and when I was seven he was involved in a serious air incident over the Pyrenees. The press covered the story and he was photographed in his uniform with guess who on his knee clutching a model aeroplane and claiming he wanted to be a pilot.
27 bloody years later and I still can't shake that passion.
Desk-pilot