Greetings all - any and all feedback welcome....
So the bad news is I'm planning to start flight training having just turned 41. I can almost hear the sniggers at the back. However, as we older folks tend to cling onto the fact, age can have its advantages in certain situations. I've already built a career (IT contractor) and am financially set without any kids, mortgage free and a supportive wife with a good salary herself. Any flight training will be paid out of savings without impacting our quality of life.
I'm under no illusions and recognise my chances of success are slim, so I plan to pursue this first and foremost to fulfill my love of aviation and finish off the PPL I started 20+ years ago. If that is all I achieve having learnt to fly safely with a new hobby then I'll be a happy man. However, I do have one eye on the dream of flying professionally - even this is just air taxis/sightseeing/instructing/or getting really lucky and flying turboprops somewhere. As such I want to give myself the best chance of success should I find I have the ability/desire to keep learning and improving all the way up to CPL/ME/IR.
As long as everything goes ok with the PPL, I'll be looking to buy a share in a 172 (or similar) then get out and try and develop my skills, have some fun & build hours to see where it takes me. I'll be starting the training early next year when my current contract (in the IT dept of a certain middle eastern airline) comes to an end and am taking a two year sabbatical to indulge myself and pursue this. So at the end of this two year period I'll hopefully have my frozen ATPL, a few hundred hours (95% on a SEP) and most importantly a shed-load of fun.
I'd love to hear any advice from people who have done similar. Thanks for taking the time to read and safe flying everyone.