Or put a suit on and use your no doubt considerable experience on the design, testing, approval and certification side. There are too few people with real hands on experience this side of the fence although you'll probably find it hard getting into this sort of work initially - you'll have to persuade potential employers that your experience is worth at-least as much as the more normal academic qualifications (it is, although doubtless whilst you'll be injecting some useful experience, you'll find yourself absorbing theory, maths, etc. that "the others" will be very good at). It's a satisfying line of work getting aeroplanes right that will be out there hopefully doing a job well for the next 20-30 years.
G