Slightly different angle I was chatting to a friend about this subject and that is we are in the service industry.
You are as good as your last flight and have nothing to show for it if anything goes wrong.
There is always the medical hanging over your head? One day you walk in a pilot and come out an ex pilot.
People start businesses and watch them grow! They have something tangible an investment, something which they can sell or will carry on giving them an income into retirement years.
Flying? Your as good as your last flight. Nothing to show, nothing to sell or give an income into your retirement and if unlucky you could loose it all in the AMEs office.
I too fly professionally in private jets but I had to recently take on a legal consultant who charged £450 an hour and can carry on being that legal consultant into his 70s
He is a professional too but makes in an hour more than I do in a day
and he does it five days a week
Don't get me wrong I have some great memories ferrying jets around the world and flying customers all over Europe but it means being very ungrounded, waking up in hotels and not even knowing which country your in. Sometimes I hanker to going back to single piston flying for fun on a sunny day
By the way it is a great skirt puller especially in some of these distant east European countries
Pace