Hi Chris
I’ll try to pass on some hopefully useful(ish) information from my perspective, I am also ex military though I was not Army and did not rise to the lofty heights of commissioned rank. I was a senior NCO aircraft engineer with the RN (try not to hold that against me). I left in January 2007 after completing 22 years service so a mere boy compared to your 28 years service.
Like you I had long harboured an ambition to fly commercially but never had the spends to complete the training, however my gratuity fixed the financial problem and the pension kept some cash coming in while I was training. I completed my PPL and night rating in Florida in Summer 2006 as my resettlement, the resettlement grant pretty much covered the cost and all I had to fund was the return air fare to Florida.
At the time the recruitment situation was buoyant, low cost airlines were recruiting hard and fast and UK flying schools were struggling to hold onto instructors as airlines kept poaching them so the signs were good for future employment. To be brutally frank if the economic and employment situations had been as harsh back then as it is now then I probably would not have bothered training.
Once I left the RN, I signed up with Bristol Groundschool for written exam study, the school were brilliant and are recognised by ELC so I was able to use an ELC grant towards the price of the course.
I started getting back into flying training with hours building in Spring 2007 and finished the instrument rating 12 months later in May 2008. Right up until the end of the instrument rating the employment prospects were looking good and the flying school I was at were losing instructors to the airlines on a regular basis. Unfortunately we started to hear rumblings of sub prime mortgages in the US, phrases like ‘credit crunch’ were being banded about and everyone with money in Northern Rock wanted to get it back again. That really started the spiral into recession, airlines like XL and many other smaller operators went bust putting hordes of pilots out of work and the good employment prospects were suddenly turned on their heads. Since then I’ve had one sim assessment and interview with an airline which I made a right pigs ear of and rightly was not offered a job.
I am still keeping the IR and medical in date while working in the military aviation world as civvy contract engineer which pays well but the work is pretty soul destroying and definitely not what I want to be doing.
I’m not sure if my age has held me back or whether other factors like the recession, airlines going bust or cutting back expansion plans and the rise of ‘Pay To Fly’ schemes have played a part. Probably a mixture of all those factors really.
If flying really is your life dream, then if you don’t attempt to realise that dream it will gnaw at you for ever. Even now when we go for our 2 weeks in the sun and turn up at the airport I still get that child like enthusiasm for the dream (sad really for a grown man). However I also get those pangs of anxiety and guilt for spending so much money and time chasing a dream that has thus far been unfulfilled and I can’t help wonder what we would have done with the money if I’d worked in engineering as soon as I left the RN. Sometimes my wife looks at houses in estate agents that are beyond our means and I always wonder whether we could have gone for it if I’d not done the training.
Do I regret doing the training or am I bitter at a dream thus far unfulfilled? Not a bit. Do I feel frustrated, impatient and angry at times? Yes, at times but thankfully I have a great family around me who snap me out of it.
Obviously if you have a spouse or partner and family then you absolutely have to be certain that they are behind you in your ambitions and that they will not be left short while you’re training and if you’re successful while you’re on a meagre wage as a junior pilot. My wife has been absolutely brilliant and has bought into the dream just as much as I have and she feels that she has been through the flying training as well.
One option worth considering is the British Airways Future Pilot Programme which I think is still accepting applications, the programme has been running for a couple of years now and I understand that they have accepted people in their 40s onto courses in the past. I also remember reading about an ex RAF Engineering Officer that got onto a Flybe cadet scheme though Flybe seem to be laying people off at the moment. The cadet schemes do not have a guaranteed job at the end of the course and the financial burden is borne squarely by the cadet but they do offer the best safety net available at the moment.
I’m not sure how much of your resettlement time and money you’ve already used but you can get your training kicked off with those resources and make full use of ELC money towards training.
One vital thing is networking, if you know serving or ex military pilots then get hold of them, they will probably be able to hook you up with contacts within the industry who will be like gold dust when you’re looking for work. If you train at a school where commercial pilots work part time as instructors or hire the aircraft for recreational flying then get to know them without stalking them.
Obviously your successful military career will furnish you with a shed load of transferrable skills that employers will understand and appreciate and while absolutely no-one in any industry (not just aviation) owes you a job, the military service will stand you in good stead.
You will also need a ‘Plan B’ ie another salary paying trade or career to fall back on to keep money coming in when you’re looking for flying work, my Plan B was engineering and that has ensured that since completing training I have recovered every penny that I spent a few times over.
Finally you might want to consider copying your post in the Military Aircrew section of PPRuNe, current and ex military pilots on there may well be able to offer you advice or maybe help hook you up with some contacts, it’s a long shot but worth a go.
Ultimately commercial flying training is a huge gamble with your time and money as the stakes. It will take you 12 to 18 months full time to complete everything, will the employment situation be better then? That’s part of the gamble and you should never stake what you cannot afford to lose.
A lot of information and much for you to consider, if you want to know more then feel free to post any questions here on open forum or PM me if you prefer and I will try to answer them for you.
A few years ago I was in your position, I made my decision now it’s your turn. Whatever you choose to do I wish you luck and hope that it all works out for the best for you.