Anti-loan dad

[Aware]

If you gotta fly you have to I understand that.

I taught a Doctor once to fly, he then went from being a Doctor to a fund manager in the City. Why because his Dad forced him to be a Doctor and he never wanted to be.

For what its worth my Kids are following non aviation careers having seen all the heartache this industry causes, but both have expressed an interest in learning to fly and gaining a PPL. So who knows, but I personally being an instructor examiner now wouldnt recommend spending much money on this industry at present, do it on the side down the modular route by all means, still dodgy though with so few getting jobs at the moment.

Have two plans one of then can be aviation but have another one as a backup, the Dr thing would be a good back up, many of my clients are surgeons and they earn twice or three times what an airline captain earns.

[magicmick]

Hi FDP, glad you appreciate the workings of my warped mind. If your bro wants to fly helicopters for the Royal Machines he will have to join as a commissioned officer, the bootnecks used to allow non commissioned to fly but not any more. After officer basic training he would then have to serve a period as a junior troop commander with at least one operational tour under his belt before he could apply for flying training. After that he would have to pass medical and flying aptitude tests before starting flying training. He could not join RM straight away as a pilot in the way that he could join RAF or RN as a pilot.

[TheFirstDohrnPilot]

AIMINGHIGH123, that's all fine and sounds ideal. But lets be honest, BerksFlyer and john_smith are probably right. You need heaps of luck and you have to be very smart. If I had the grades I probably would go and do law or medicine. This may sound cheesy but that's why aviation is perfect for me. You don't need excellent grades and it goes hand in hand with what I'm passionate about. It's still hard work (and you still have to be intelligent!), of course, and the pay may not be as great as in medicine or law, but, to me, it's the best job ever. Sitting in an office all day pushing paper, or doing endoscopies... no thanks!
magicmick, sounds pretty tough. I shall suggest it to him nonetheless...
Aware, taking it slow, doing the modular. That's my plan

Thanks everyone

[206Fan]

There is a strange infatuation with law degrees on this site. There is no shortage of aspiring lawyers.

Indeed. There is a serious shortage of Electrical Engineers though.

[mad_jock]

Why is that davy?

Have they been clamping down on curb crawling again?

[206Fan]

Not enough people studying it plus the majority of Engineer Job Vacancies available at the minute are looking Electrical and Software Engineers. A friend of mine got his Full Degree Course and Two Year Masters in Electrical Engineering paid for through a Scholarship. Thats how short it is.

[aviofreek]

Do you like flying or do you just like the idea of being a pilot (Ray-Bans, uniforms, flight attendants, traveling, fancy hotels...)? I'm not trying to be mean, just you remind me of me when I was 17. And 18. And 19... Up until a while ago...

If you're really passionate about aviation, there are way better payed jobs out there. Think about Licensed Aircraft Maintenence Engineer or ATC.
And if you really are passionate about flying those jobs would provide plenty of fun hours in the air. And even fill a few holes in poor ol dad's budget after he coughs up all the money for heli training.

I'll leave you with a thought of an airline pilot whom I have met on my medical: Being an airline pilot is like eating your favorite cake. If you eat it every day, eventually you'll get sick of it.

[pudoc]

Why is that davy?

Because electrics is the most boring and tedius thing I have ever come across...excluding the Antiques Road Show.

[206Fan]

Because electrics is the most boring and tedius thing I have ever come across...excluding the Antiques Road Show.

More so to do with the shear amount of Maths.

[Hovermonkey]

If your brother wants to fly rotary from zero, he could seriously do a lot worse than the military. He obviously won't have to pay a penny and the flying is about as varied as it gets - I'd try and push him that way if I were you - maybe you can then try to get funds from your dad!

[TheFirstDohrnPilot]

aviofreek, how would you get to spend fun hours in the air as an ATC? And no, I don't really care about the pay. The things you mention, (Ray-Bans, etc) are a nice touch, but it's like you say - the novelty will wear off...
Besides, I don't even like shades!! haha. And you can't be telling me that ATC and engineering are half as fulfilling as flying
What happened ''up until a while ago''???

Thanks

[Genghis the Engineer]

And you can't be telling me that ATC and engineering are half as fulfilling as flying

I can't speak for ATC, but my career in engineering has been every bit as fulfilling as my career in flying and I would hate to give it up any more than I would my flying.

Delivering a really well flown flight, or teaching somebody to fly a new aeroplane, is fantastic.

Solving the problem of why something failed on an aeroplane, certifying a new piece of kit, or seeing something that you designed built and flying, is every bit as satisfying as a good flight.

I'm not a maintenance engineer (well I am, but not to the standards of many of the people you'll find on Pprune), but I certainly know maintainers who get a similar level of satisfaction from delivering a serviceable aeroplane on time against a lot of adversity, or finding ways to incorporate a difficult modification.

G

(Chartered Engineer with PhD, Commercial Pilot with instructor and test pilot qualifications)

[wiggy]

Chartered Engineer with PhD, Commercial Pilot with instructor and test pilot qualifications

Blimey Genghis that's a genuinely impressive CV you've got there - but tell me, what do you did you do with all your spare time when you were younger?

[TheFirstDohrnPilot]

Hovermonkey, my plans exactly
And G, sounds like you enjoy what you do a lot! Nice.
And wiggy I think our friend Genghis wouldn't have had much spare time with that kind of CV...

[TheFirstDohrnPilot]

DelayReducer, that's not patronising - it's good advice. I don't think I would start training right away. I will certainly look for some kind of work, though, to take the edge off my training costs. Doing it piece by piece should help too
And, I would love a job in the aviation industry but what's open to me if I don't go to uni?

Thanks

[Genghis the Engineer]

Originally Posted by wiggy

Blimey Genghis that's a genuinely impressive CV you've got there - but tell me, what do you did you do with all your spare time when you were younger?

My wife claims that I'm incapable of sitting still doing nothing!

G

[cgwhitemonk11]

My bit...

Thought I'd add my own experience...

Finished school in 2006, got the second highest grades in the county. Offered Law in one of the best University's in Dublin. Delighted as many uncles and also my mother worked in varying parts of company/family law.
Took a year out to decide what I wanted to do, got a job in a bank for a year and decided sitting in an office just wasnt for me and randomly decided that I was becoming a pilot.

Asked my parents could they afford it and they said they would struggle but they would scrape it together (they are divorced too so I had to to have that tough conversation twice!)

Paid the €2000 deposit myself and from that years work I saved up €12,000 and basically paid for my living expenses for the 12 of the 18 months I was in flight school in a foreign country.
Passed all 14 ATPL exams at first attempt with an average of 97.7% and passed all practicals first time. The world had turned upside down a few months after I started flight school so my parents struggled and alot of nights I sat awake worried would they be able to do it but they did and I could never repay the faith they put in me and am so proud of them.

Then in 2009 I fell for the hoax of a A320 type rating with no job and paid over €20,000 to fly that big jet for an hour. (My lawyer uncle footed that bill and I will have to pay him back one day, he hated his hugely paying London City job and quit that same year).

Anyway cutting to the chase:

I was shocked I hadnt walked into a job which I'm fairly sure I could have done in any other career. It was a lesson I needed to learn, I had worked in bars as a kid so I got a job in a bar in Dublin and started saving. Then I got a job in a bigger bar, and now I work in the busiest one. I worked my ass off for a year, took three months off to go to the Caribbean and fly over there(which was my dream and the original reason why I chose to become a pilot). Came home and got my old job back luckily and started saving again.

Now I've been home 5 months and my savings have been good and I have put myself in a position where if I have to P2F it I have that choice, but so far I have said no to the ' great offers'.

My point is this: go get a job, or do what previous posters have said and get the military to pay for it (great idea in my opinion!) because its all about the benjamins in this business these days, but it can be done if you work hard.

I'm 23, have around 500 hours total time, an A320 rating and all the time in the world to pay back my parents for their help. I calculate that I've paid for approx 30% of my training out of my own pocket, now that might not seem like much but when you consider that 30% is almost €40,000 it seems like alot!

Best of luck and hope you find my experience helpful.

[aviofreek]

Sorry man, what I ment was, licensed ATC and AMEs get well payed to support all the flying you want.

I mean if you like flying as in "being the pilot and manipulating controls in order to actively fly an airplane" don't think you'll enjoy much working for airlines... That's my humble opinion, all the airline CPLs and ATPLs here are more than welcome to prove me wrong...

At the end you'll end up spending hard earned money flying gliders or aerobatics over the weekend to get that flying fix. Somehow spending SH!+ loads of money in order to "get where you wanna be", killing yourself to repay it, just to end up spending more money on something else, doesn't seem logical. (Hope that answers your "What happened a while ago" question)

I just think, after a few bad financial decisions of my own, you should earn some money first before you spend it all

[Poeli]

I completely agree with aviofreek.
Don't think lightly about €10k. Try working that together, it's hard (I am someone with some expierence doing jobs from airports to factorys)

And please don't underestimate the feeling of finishing a project where you worked on for 2-3 years as an engineer. It might even be more fulfilling than flying an Airbus/Boeing for those 2-3 years.

[TheFirstDohrnPilot]

Thanks for that cgwhitemonk11! Definite helpful and a nice story (smart chap!). Where did you do most of your training if I may ask? And, why didn't you go the modular route? That way you could have worked and trained at the same time, couldn't you? Also... you got a job now after all that expensive training...?!
aviofreek... I see what you meant now! haha

Thanks