Kick-starting your career (engineer to pilot)
 

Hi everyone I hope you're all having a good Easter break! I just wanted to bring a few questions to the table to see if any of you guys who have knowledge/experience could give me your opinion on the route that I am thinking of taking to become a commercial airline pilot in the future.

I am currently taking a year out from my studies and have received an offer to study Aerospace Engineering (degree & masters) at 'The University of Sheffield' for September. Before anybody judges - I have not chosen this route just because I think it will tie in with becoming a pilot, but because of my genuine interest for the design and mathematics behind getting an object to leave the ground.

My plan is to have as many flying lessons as possible over the up and coming summer, as it works out cheaper to save and pay for your lessons in blocks. Then go to uni, join the uni air squadron, complete my degree and enjoy working as an engineer, putting money to one side to pay for the numerous licences and ratings I will need to become an airline pilot, taking the modular route over a number over years. I have been told by many that now is not the right time to become a pilot with the economic climate and the amount of jobs available. But, 6-7 years down the line, working as an engineer to fund my training etc, would I be in a better position to do this, as more jobs will be available?

Would this be the most sensible and wisest route to take in this day in age to become a pilot?

Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong, as I am just trying to gather as much information as I can.

+1

One thing maybe: Going the way you intend to go, you might be 30 years old (or older) by the time you have your ATPL. This may exclude you from many airlines. But there is business aviation too! Much more fun flying bizjets than airlines anyway!

Hi WN,

flying business jets is something I have never considered - have you taken this route yourself or do you intend to?

thanks for the reply :)

I have indeed taken this route myself. But 30 years ago... Started studying aerospace technology in 1980, did some gliding and hang gliding during the holidays as we have no "university air squadrons" here and everything else would have been too expensive.
After finishing univerity I got myself a part time job first and a ph.d grant later and spent all my money and spare time on flying lessons and hour building for several years. When I had my CPL/IR/ME/Instructor rating, I continued working freelance as engineer (mostly IT stuff for a big European aircraft manufacturer) and flew piston twins commercially for many years.
It was way too late then for the decent airlines as our flag carrier and its regional "daughters" used to have an age limit of 27 for ready entries. So I stayed in GA, finished my ATPL/MCC and finally moved to bizjets (with a short transition via turboprops in between).

I would do exactly the same thing again without hesitation :)

Thanks for the reply WN!

It sounds like you have made some great decisions to get to where you want to be with your career.

Working as a business jet pilot, are you flying mos days of the week?

Are you still working as an Instructor as well?

Thanks :)

Welcome, always glad if I can offer advice!

It may not be the greatest career money-wise, but I managed to do everything without having to borrow money. If I see our students now who come out of flying school with almost 100,000 Pounds/Euros/Dollars of debts and no job prospects for the near future and no alternative profession to bridge the gap I am glad that I never got myself in that position.

It changes very much with the season, but I have a part-time contract with 12 days per months (which is about 2/3 of a full time postion) which means on average I fly three days per week.

Yes, and I still enjoy it very much. More so because I don't have to, but because I _want_ to do it :)

Sounds like a very good plan! Good luck on your training and remember to network all the time, it will help you get a job.

I've been thinking about doing the same, I graduate next january as Msc in aeronautical engineering. I have no PPL but really want to pick up gliding again. I don't know yet wether I will do it (depends on how my engineering job will pay), because as a student I have to work 2 days to be able to fly one hour single engine:ugh:
It's the most reasonable route you can go i think. Good luck with it!

WN - Thanks very much for the advise. I'll definitely take this into consideration in the future!

Thanks for the reply Poeli. Well done on your studies!

I agree it is very expensive to fund lessons! I wouldn't worry too much about the time it takes for you to complete your PPL etc because of the lack of pilot jobs there are at the moment. I have been told by many people to take as long as I need to do my PPL (within reason) because you will get there in the end :)

Good luck!

Just we wary that many of the big airlines only taken on integrated students. If your end goal is in Easyjet et al, and you go modular, you are probably going to need to find a number of interim flying jobs before getting there. Those interim jobs are (I'm told) hard to find and there aren't that many of them going. On the other hand, the advertising blurb from the integrated schools suggest that just about all their students get jobs. If you do go into bisjets - the flying is likely to be much more interesting and varied than in the larger airlines.

You pay your money - you take your chance. There's no certainty about anything - so doing the degree will stand you in good stead because you will have something to fall back on.