I agree with the previous poster! If you have a good career and you are in your thirties, think very rational and in numbers. Dont quit your job for the sake of flying. If you have a good career, freelance flying might be an option, but flying as your main job........think not twice but hundred times.
I was half in my twenties when i started my training. It took me 3 years to get my first flying job. Now i am still flyng for a small bizz jet operator and i can tell you....it really s....
!! Always being on stand by, getting underpaid, getting phonecalls on off days, being away from friends and family. The last 4.5 years i have been looking to other flying jobs. Not 1 single gig i got. Got always the middlefinger in my face: not having the typerating, not having experience on aicraft above 20 Tons, not being able to speak fluently the local language etc. It was always something, although i got experience, but operators simply dont care about experience anymore (tunnelvision). I also feel that in the mean time i am not current anymore with new technologies because i only fly with old aircraft. So yes in some way i am not "up to date". And in the mean time i am getting older. Oh, and the lpc
like hell. A joke it is. It is all very disturbing and yes, i can truly say, i am not feeling a professional pilot anymore.
Now i gave up on applying and decided to throw the towel in the ring. I really did my best to improve but somehow......i dont know. I am now putting my focus on other things in my private life (friends, hobbies, buying a small house...)Yes i am still working with the same company, but reducing my flexibility and looking for another job in other field..
What i experience can happen to you as well. You dont have all things in your hands. Make sure you have a back up plan and like i said: think in numbers. If you have a nice career, would you be able to have the same lifestyle when you fly with a pilot salary??? And don't neglect your private life. I discovered it is sooooo important. I even would say, it is the fundament of ones life.
A friend of me, who is already 50, got recently a job with a regional carrier in the States. No life at all, living in crash pads and underpaid as hell. All for the sake of sitting in a cockpit.
Good luck and decide wise!
