I DON'T want to be an airline pilot, but...

[venquessa]

Hi guys,

So I have a career as a Software Engineer and a hobby as a flight enthusiast. Both are life long interests. I have done a few PPL lessons and I have about 20 hours flying paragliders.

Basically I am toying around with an idea to at some point in maybe the next 10-15 years to shift careers to something involving flying.

Assuming my Software Engineering pension is not going to cover me completely at age 50...

What are the option, if any, to get a commercial (non airliner) license and pick up some money doing small GA style ferry flights and hauling business folks around in small aircraft in the UK?

Is it even worth considering or just not worth it as it's the pre-retirement career for airline pilots and thus saturated?

[Genghis the Engineer]

Not a lot - air taxi tends to want quite a lot of experience more often than not and ferry work tends to be thin on the ground.

However, a 50 year old flying instructor who has a reasonable amount of private flying behind him, may well be extremely employable. At that age, you're assumed to be there for the career rather than to hour build towards an airline job, and to have a bit of personal gravitas you can take into the cockpit.

And if there's a bit of ferrying in between - well there is.

[OhNoCB]

Echo the above.

You can actually find in a lot of circumstances that for ferrying aircraft (especially across certain large bits of water) and also for corporate type work you can need more experience/hours than you do to get a job in an airline.

There is definitely room for more 'career' instructors or as in your case just ones that are in it for the flying and the instructing, with an enthusiasm for it and not just to fill a gap in employment and to try to 'build' hours towards airline requirements. There is also a limited amount (especially given location) of other possible flying such as the skydive stuff, which a couple of local instructors have done before in Garvagh.

[venquessa]

Thanks Guys.

It's just something I'm thinking about. I just think it would be a waste to stay in the one career till I retire.

I suppose whatever I do I should really start into getting my PPL and see what happens then.

[Genghis the Engineer]

Everything starts with a PPL - which is also a lot of fun to do. That's definitely the right starting point.

[Sethorion]

You answered an unrelated question I was thinking about asking.

Thanks! :)

[Fly4Business]

No matter what you do, in current times you are unemployable at age 50 and beyond (some say even beyond 4X the probability goes to less then 70 percent to get a new job). If you don't have all you wanted at that age and still want to go forward, you have to be self-employed or become an entrepreneur. So, whatever you plan as continuous learning addict, look that it sustains you on your own.