Advice on opportunity. What do YOU think?

[STANDTO]

Righto! I've been skulking around these forums for too long. Time for some action!

I'm 34. married with 2 kids, splendid home, good lifestyle, job that pays well (see profile) BUT, can't get it out of my system.

Yup, I want to fly commercially. As do so many, I know! Recently, my old man died at 61, which perhaps made me look at life and say, well, time and opportunity are passing you by. What are you going to do about it?

I don't just want to take a PPL either. With no disrespect to any one tha does fly for pleasure, its not my bag.

I've got to be honest as well, my aspirations aren't that high. A nice little regional job, six to eight sectors a day, and being able to maintain my base here on fraggle rock. I know that narrows down my list of likely employers.

Whereas I have the utmost admiration for all those who go through abject hardship to attain their dream, I am perhaps a little bit more of a non-risk taker. I wouldn't want to put my family in a position where they had to go without just so I can do what I really want to do with my life. Shucks, just call me an ol' romantic at heart!

I can cope with the academic sides of things pretty well, and enjoy studying, so I'm not to worried about the groundschool side of things. However, I am ab initio. Cash, should not be a problem. The goal is, to be able to walk up to an employer to look at starting some sort of right hand seat employment.

so, within the parameters below, can someone come up with an action plan, with hours, exams, costs, timescales and the like. Look at it as an Open University type approach to things!


1. Don't want to give up work

2. Training in spare time is not a problem, either in the air or at the desk

3. Cash shouldn't be an issue


Look forward to hearing from you. Either drop me an email, or if you think it will be of use to others, post it here.

Thanks

[scroggs]

Hmm. Well, subject to your medical and that you have the required aptitude (I recommend taking the GAPAN aptitude tests before you lay out on the training), getting the fATPL should be just a matter of time, if the money is a given. But then what? There are very few jobs around at the moment, and unless there's a shock improvement in the UK/European economy - and no Gulf War 2 - I don't really see things improving rapidly over the next two or three years. So, whether you like it or not, you ARE taking a big risk. There is no well-trodden and all-but-guaranteed path to a RHS, regional or not.

Of course, I assume you will always have the option of resuming your current career, but you have to accept that your £50k could well be a lost investment, especially if you are not prepared to risk your family's living standards. I can obviously understand why, but there is something to the suggestion that those who are prepared to risk most will gain the most.

Anyway, read the thread below about Ryanair and EZ recruiting for some very good advice and information on the current state of the jobs market and the desperation of those currently trying to scale our particular career cliff.

[tailscrape]

Yes, hmmmm.

I think it will be a risky time for quite a while to train. It has always been a risk, but there we go.

If you did give up work and did an integrated course, it would be TWO years from now before you have the licence.

If you keep working and do a modular route, I guess you can DOUBLE the timescale.

You would then be 38 or 39, that is around the cut off point or so it would seem.

Adding to that, you seem to only want to live on Fraggle Rock.

That really limits your options.

Adding all your circumstances up, I would say don't bother. You will probably be left unfulfilled.

If you really wanted to fly, you would just go do it and not put too many demands on it.

Sorry if you don't like my opinion.

[STANDTO]

Cheers Scroggs

I take it then, that the jobs market really did go belly up after 9/11? Like you say, its a 50k gamble, but if I continued in my current line of work and just kept plodding away, then I've always got it. I have a thought that, as with so many other things, a crisis will arrive some time in the future where all the clouds of doubt which exist as to the future of commercial aviation at the moment, will blow away to reveal a real lack of qualified aircrew. Who knows, and who can say.

Tailscrape

Your advice is equally as sound - I value your opinion. as I say above, who knows what the future holds. THe Frag caveat does limit my options, but therein lies another gamble. If things continue to improve here as they are doing, so will the need for regional air travel improve. Also, there are a number of other operating bases within striking distance.

Then again, £50 k buys a huge fridgeful of beer

Keep the views coming folks. You'll either talk me in, or out, but at least I'll have had the best advice..........

[tailscrape]

Now come on, you didn't mention a HUGE fridge full of beer first time round did you?

F/ck the flying. Get the beer. I'm on my way!!!!!

[STANDTO]

Can you get a 757 into Ronaldsway?

[saker]

While the last couple of replys are quite right to point out the risk involved, of which im sure your aware, there are more pieces to the puzzle.

Only you know if this is something you HAVE to do.

Further couple of points; your desire to maintain your familys current standard of living may need reconsidering, change would be inevitable, although temporary.

How understanding is your boss? my former boss gave me the time off i needed paid/unpaid.

If you want it enough you'll face the risk. The majority of us faced certain risks, i personally would do so again. Nothing could ever beat going to 'work' to fly.

:)

[Elvis21]

Give a little more info. I think a PPL would be a nice idea to see if you actually have the ability and keeness to fly. After all, some guys who say all they have ever dreamed of is being a pilot, hate the thought of being in a 152.

Fly first, career after;)

[STANDTO]

more wise words. I think the PPL is a good idea.

I can do things such as career breaks and so on. I also appreciate that there will have to be some drop in standards of living and so on. Some people risk houses and the like. Not really my game.

[jocko0102]

Im 34 in a secure well paid job.I plan on going to Jerez next year to do my ATPL.
Now i dont have mortgage/wife/kids etc so it makes it easier for me but if you want to challenge yourself and you are not afraid of investing the money with no immediate pay back then go for it.
However if you start to doubt yourself too much and the effect it will have on you and your family then maybe just buy the beer instead.
I dont mind the risk but its a lot of dosh when you have a family.

[redsnail]

To be honest, I feel that you shouldn't do it.
By all means get the PPL. You can do a lot of private flying with 50K.
You are justifiably concerned about affecting your lifestyle and family. Fair enough. However, for the first couple of years in this industry you will not earn much money. You will be lucky to be earning 20K/year. This assumes you get a flying job after the course. Is this enough to keep the family happy?
Have a look at the companies based at Fraggle Rock and ask about their minimum hours required and pay scales. This will give you a very clear idea if it is feasable.
Just because an operator is based or has bases at Fraggle Rock doesn't mean they will be there in 2-5 years time. Have a read in this site and you'll see many bases in remotish areas being closed. Don't fall for "I'll cross that bridge when it happens". Sit down now and discuss it with your wife.
Write it all down and then make a decision.
Sounds tough and harsh but as a captain, that is your job.
It sounds like you have taken the rose tinted glasses off. Keep them off.
If you do decide to do it. In your situation, I would go modular. Minimises your risk. Do the medicals etc and get a PPL. Do the ATPL theory distance learning so you can keep working. You are looking at finishing 2-3 years from now.
Remember this, the industry is cyclical by nature and extremely sensitive to world economic events. Every 10 years it cycles from boom to bust.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

The fraggle rock only caveat is too limiting unless you can get some prior ecouragement from 'them' that they will take you on as you are a long term resident and will stay with them for your career.

There are thousands of bloked out there with licenses willing and able to relocate anywhere in the country tomorrow for a regional airline job. You are going to exclude yourself from 99% of potential first jobs available by sticking to the rock.

An already hard task is therefore something of a Mission Impossible. UNLESS you have an IN to the regional airline in question on Fraggle Rock...

I would also recommend doing a PPL first:

a) You might be useless at flying

b) You might be OK but find the whole thing a lot less fun than you imagined

c) The hours spent can more or less be totally recovered on any future Modular or Integrated course therefore its a FREE risk reduction exercise.

Good luck,

WWW

[tailscrape]

STANDTO,

I don't know how long the Ronaldsway runway is, but the 757 is exceptionally powerful, and has amazing braking capacity.

An empty aircraft, full brakes landing gets in most places. 5000' runway at Skiathos springs to mind.......

As for an empty plane, full chat,brakes on until stabilised engines takeoff.......will probably lift off by the 1000' markers (well not quite, but you get the picture!)

Only problem is, the fridge won't be big enough on a 757 in charter fit!:(

[STANDTO]

I only had your safety at heart Tailscrape!

So, the preferred option seems to be the following:

1. Make enqs with perhaps the larger operators on Frag (BACE and BEA) to see what their thoughts are, but don't rule out having to work from elsewhere. The advantage I DO have is that I am here and house prices have gone, and continue to go silly (I paid 83 for mine four years ago and would now clear 240). It is the same as my current employment. Anyone wishing to transfer from the UK struggles because of this. A FO on about 20K is going to struggle to rent let alone buy, and will most likely be paying off a huge loan of some sort anyway. Just a thought, but it has to be a consideration.

2. Do PPL and see if I can cope/really do want to

3. Enrol and complete ATPL theory course whilst accruing hours

complete flying requirements in due course over 3 years.

This can't ultimately be more demanding in terms of work required than a decent part-time degree?

If anyone wants to knock a rough syllabus together, please do. That way I can do the sums etc and try and get things off the ground


Cheers for all the help so far.

[flyerstar]

I would deinitely recommend doing a PPL before you bash on. Moreover have you investigated modular options? If you can get a lot of flying done before its useful, so i would also go for a night rating apart from a PPL.

[tom_higginson]

If the passion is there you will find a way. Me, I'm only 17 and getting into commercial flying and have been through my own ups and downs. I literally cried after being rejected by the RAF because of hayfever. So STANDTO no offence, but it really annoys me when people are so picky about the ways in which they become a pilot (especially as you have the money), I would risk my life to become a pilot.

Don't worry readers I'm not crazy ;)

[STANDTO]

Hey Tom, best of luck.

I hate to use cliches, but been there done that and got the t-shirt. I actually went to Cranwell after accepting a ground commission, bu they managed to break my legs (literally)

I am now a lot older and wiser, and if you are ever blessed with children you will realise where I am coming from. Stay single and 'selfish' and you will realise your goal in a very short space of time.

The older you get, the bigger the fall if it all goes wrong. THAT, is why I have to build my path with a f@ckin big safety net, cos my vision isn't all that is at stake.

Once again, hope it comes your way

[Pandora]

Standto,

a lot of pilots commute on staff travel in order to ensure that they can live where they want to. I fly a lot of the domestic routes and it is a rare day when I don't carry flight crew and cabin crew for BA, virgin, BMI and the likes. When you get into aviation the world really does shrink. So don't be so set on a job in IOM. However I do think you maight be getting a bit ahead of yourself saying that you want to fly for a living and a PPL just won't fulfil you when you haven't even acquired the aforementioned PPL. After all it is only money that limits the size and type of aircraft you can fly for fun. Just ask John Travolta ;) . I would also add to you that it can be done. I know men in their 30s and 40s with a wife and kids who have gone after their dream and succeeded but it was hard for them. They did integrated course with me at OATS and their children would telephone them every night asking when their daddy was coming home. These are all things you need to consider. Finally - 6 to 8 sectors a day..... easy? Are you mad? 4 full domestics in a day and I'm a zombie.





Tom,

Don't say you would risk your life for the opportunity to fly. No one will think you brave or clever if you come out with this sort of remark. At 17 you have bags of time. I didn't even travel on an aircraft till I was 20.
Peolpe become picky because ultimatley being a pilot is a job, and there IS more to life than just your job. Friends, family, hobbies, home all become important and you are foolish if you agree to sacrifice all of these things for the sake of flying. I wouldn't want to give up my job, but at my BA interview I was asked my reasons for being so keen on OATS and not Michigan. I stated that family support was important to me and that I did not want to spend a year or more in a different continent to my husband. I was duly offered a place at OATS. The poor man who stated that he would train and work anywhere for the opportunity to work for BA was sent to Michigan. His new wife was not very happy and neither was he.
So be enthusiastic, keep trying and remember not to belittle other peoples aspirations. One day you will be 34 witha wife, kids and home. Hopefully you will ahve what you want, and not be in Standto's difficult situation.

[STANDTO]

Thanks Pandora

I believe there are a few heavy drivers here on fraggle rock who do much the same as you suggest. Certainly the network from here does open up a lot of opportunities.

The reason I dont want to just fly for fun is just me, really. I need a vocation change, not just a diversion. My career bores the backside off me, which isn't due to where I do it, because it did in the bright lights and big cities too. Many years ago I thought I had let the aviation thing go. I didn't, and it has just been festering away ever since.

If I can find a cost effective and efficient route to take me to a FATPL in the next 3 or so years whilst I continue to earn decent money,then I will have the best of both worlds - a roof over my head, a well supported family, and with a bit of luck when the clouds of doubt start blowing away from aviation, be able to gently step from one career to the next. In the meantime, I will have had plenty of recreational fun learning my new trade in the 3 dimensional classroom.

Early days yet, but we shall see

Thanks again

[tom_higginson]

pandora,

The thing about me risking my life was not ment to be taken too literally, and I was not trying to sound clever or brave.

I think you misunderstood me.

[fonawah]

STANDTO,
Hi I am almost in a similar situation. Age 32,hospital doctor, married (no kids) and desparate to fly commercially. Unfortunatelly my wife is completely against this. She is slowly coming round though.Have had a trial lesson and loved it. I am starting with PPL over the next few months/six months then modular route. Hopefully ATPL in 2-3 yrs and hopefully Gulf War II does not put a spanner in the works. If I could quit my job tomorrow I would but I need the money to pay for my training!!
Good luck to you sir and keep us informed of your progress.
Fonawah

[STANDTO]

Ah, another professional who just doesn't quite find satisfaction within his profession!

I am sooooooo glad it is not just me!

[ClearBlueWater]

STANDTO, if you go for it I wish you the best of luck but reading between the lines I suspect you will struggle in the end to get there.

I am 33, have wife and two kids, a mortgage and a well paid job, the whole caboodle. I've just completed the CPL (helicopters not planks) via the modular route and it's taken two and half years to get to this point. My family has missed me on many weekends and evenings during that time and I've spent a lot of cash to get to this point. I've now got to find another £25K or so to build another 100 hours and do an Instructors rating, as no one will take on a low hour helo pilot for commercial work (not in the UK anyway). Only once I'm an instructor will I get some return for my trials to date, and then the pay will be poor. All this in the HOPE that at some point I MAY get a crack at a commercial job. Should that opportunity arise it is very unlikely to be in the vicinity of where I currently live.

What I'm saying is this venture will cost you time, effort and family sacrifice in addition to money if you are to get to where you hope you will end up. In reality the competition is stiff if you are not prepared to risk your family's domestic bliss for a period of time, probably quite a long period, then you're really making the long hard haul almost impossible.

There are many more qualified pilots than there are jobs. Do not underestimate how many people are prepared to do ANYTHING to get those jobs. They will be able to undercut you very easily.

I'm not criticising your need to maintain a comfortable existence for your family, I just think you AND YOUR FAMILY need to go into this with your eyes wide open.

Best of luck with whatever way you decide to go.

[STANDTO]

Good points CBW

In some respects, what the commercial air industry is doing is dangerous. Allow me to expand;

My selling point would be that I don't have any baggage to worry about, viz: big loan, keeping roof over head, lack of stability etc. I will be able to zip around the skies without a head full of other things that may take the edge off my performance. That is no criticism of the many that have gone that route before, but I think it brings another facet to my CV.

Interesting choice of aviation for yourself. If it was just for fun it would have been choppers without a doubt. However, as you rightly point out, that market is even tighter than fixed wing.

I'd be interested to hear the views on anyone in the industry as to whether I have a valid point re: excess baggage. I know it had a big part to play in my current employment back in the seventies which resulted in radical reform and improvements in pay and conditions.

.............and of course, if it didn't work out, I would still have my current job, and an FATPL, and thae satisfaction in knowing Ihad got that far, and the possibility of changing jobs if the market does pick up. Alternatively, who knows, I might still retire from the Plods at 52 and then get a job flying crates of rubber spiders out of Taiwan.

[piperindian]

STANDTO, i dont want to sound negative but a JAR fATPL is probably the most useless thing in the known universe in the current economical conditions.

If i had to do it over again, i would NEVER invest 50k like i did into this but have kept my PPL/IFR and bought a share in a small airplane, maybe aerobatic. would have cost probbaly less, with resale value. The training itself means sacrificing your family life, holidays (weather is a factor for training, when its 0-0 even carriers dont fly, you also dont venture in the air with severe icing without deicing), lotz of dosh, lotz of time (waiting for the instructor, for the airplane, for the weather to improve a little bit, for the CAA bureaucrats...)

[STANDTO]

I must say, Piper, I expected a bag full of posts in that vein.

However, I am surprised how positive the general view is. No it isn't easy, but it is achieveable and who knows what the future has in store

[RVR800]

I think that there are just too many people chasing too few jobs.
Jam tomorrow?

Also there is just not enough money in this game - strikes strikes why do we bother fawlty? I met a BA captain who said that BA FOs cant afford to buy a house in the south east and he had only just managed to get a 2 bed terraced house himself.

The best time to be a pilot was in the 20s and 30s barnstorming.

However if you are a gambler with time and money to spare go for it ! You could be the one of the lucky ones.

Many people have made a lot of dosh in the house price boom and are spending it on this. Top of the market? Bust to follow?

War beckons fuel up? and Sept 11th is a distant memory we hope.

How many of the 15,000 professional pilits on the CAA stats have flown multi crew?

There are a lot of middle aged men still living in hope lives on hold ..... waiting waiting waiting.......TIME??..

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for soemone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to nought or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desparation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say............................

[STANDTO]

Ahem! Constable Jones, pass me my service revolver, there's a good chap.

and leave the room, if you would be so kind. Theres an envelope in my top drawer...................................................... ......................................
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Damn blanks! Still alive!

I have to say the housing issue is possibly a problem the airlines are going to have to face up to. Just as Police, Nurses and Firemen can't live where they are needed, so the same issues persist within aviation. If you need x number of FO's to fill right hand seats in jets from the major airports, so you are going to have to pay them to live there. Similarly, a clown like me who will be content doing regional trucking on and off fraggle rock with a home and security built in to that base might just have an unique selling point. Who knows? We shall see.............