Advice on opportunity. What do YOU think?
Join Date: Apr 2002
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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
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
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
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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...)
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...)
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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
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
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TIME
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............................
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............................
Last edited by scroggs; 6th Sep 2002 at 22:35.
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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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................................................BANG........ ......................................
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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.............
and leave the room, if you would be so kind. Theres an envelope in my top drawer...................................................... ......................................
............................................................ ...........................................
............................................................ ...........................................
................................................BANG........ ......................................
............................................................ ...........................................
............................................................ ............................................
............................................................ ............................................
...........................................
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.............
Last edited by scroggs; 6th Sep 2002 at 22:32.
