To jump or not to jump.
 

I'm a 300hr glider pilot with a bit of instructing time and am considering taking up power flying if it's feasible to go through to CPL/ATPL and make a living by flying. Anything would do, teaching in spam cans, driving cargo around, chucking nutters out the back with parachutes, bizjets, internal/regional stuff, whatever there is available - I just love flying.

I don't expect there is a fortune to be made doing it but is it realistic to think that I can get qualified, find some sort of work and be able to pay off the training debt while still having enough to eat and pay the heating bills? To be vulgar about it, what sort of wages are available outside of major airlines? That would effect how long it took to pay off the loan, of course.

There's so much negativity on the forums but also when chatting to airline pilots i know that i'm beginning to think i'd look stupid to go for it. It's a massive financial commitment. Is there a living wage to be had outside of a Captaincy on a big shiny jet?

And if so, are there specialist companies who offer loans for training or do i need to speak to my bank manager?

Thanks for your patience with a newby.

FlyMonketFly

Welcome to the Wannabee forum! You will find there are people here who will be delighted to give you help to get your foot on the first rung of the ladder. There are also a lot of naysayers and sciolists (see bottom of page!).

Whilst you will no doubt get a lot of answers from all quarters, please take time to wander around the forum and you will find answers to some of your quewstions - whilst you will also learn a lot about the industry.

Good luck

HWB

Moderator, Wannabees

Thanks for the encouragement.

If anyone could indicate average wages at different levels of professional flying it would help me when trying to get a load sorted...

Thank you.

Hi FlyMonkeyFly,

We're in somewhat similar situations. I'm also not looking exclusively at airlines and jets as possibilities.
But the market tends to push the other options lower in the payscale as they are all ways to build up your hours...
I'm sure much more accurate and experienced answers will come but here's somewhere to start poking around; although most of the info there is related to airlines...
http://http://www.pilotjobsnetwork.c...php?reg=Europe

Best of luck in your decision making process!

If you're already making a good salary in your current occupation, allowing you to enjoy flying in your spare time, then I wouldn't make the jump to something that'll not make nearly the same amount of money and cost lots to acquire. :(

Instructing around £15k a year, they keep you self employed, which has a lot of downsides, but it also means that you can claim a lot of stuff as expenses and pay a lot less tax.

Small turboprop outfit would start at anything from £21,000-£26,500, plus duty pay on top.

Absolutely.

There used to be. HSBC used to do a great deal, but they got burned by too many people not getting jobs and declaring bankruptcy, so it's all gone wrong I'm afraid. You can typically get £25k unsecured, no questions asked, but you'll have to fund the rest yourself.

In this industry it's far more about who you know than what you know. If you want to get into a decent turbo prop outfit, or into biz jets, it's all about contacts. I myself work for a very decent turbo prop outfit, and the interview was about 20 mins long with no technical questions, as I was already known to them through networking. So you've got to take the gamble on your own charisma, and ability to make the right contacts at the right time, and potentially move anywhere in the country/world to make your dream come true.

Noone will come knocking on your door offering you a job next door.

Thank you, RTN11. That's a really helpful answer. And thanks all.

Though i have been earning enough to fly for fun, the longer term future is a bit murky in that respect so if a career change is needed in medium term this could be the time to move in the direction of something i would really want to do.

Once again, we seem to be in very very similar positions. The thing that is really holding me back is the most common one; perspectives surrounding the end of CPL/IR training and starting to find a way to get some hours and some money (preferably at the same time!!). I still have (maybe to my own harm...) some sense of decency and work ethics and the constantly referred "schemes" around starting to "work" (the latest posts around these forums suggest aviation is going down a hobby path, and rightfully) are really not what i want..
What is your perspective (even if it is through a crystal ball) of those times?
Is instruction an option? (In Portugal the number of trainees has dropped a lot and so even the number of instructor courses is also very low...)
Is there a market for guys like us (200-ish hours) who don't want/expect/need to go running up the ladder to a shinny big jet and would just enjoy flying and getting paid decently?
(sorry for this slight hijack of your thread, FlyMonkeyFly...)

Are there no airline guys at your gliding club you could network with?

I glide whenever I can, and I know one of our main recruiters does the same. Often at the bar at the end of the day, sharing stories of the days gliding, is the best time to get in the right person's good books.

Monkey, aviation is an addiction. It takes all your money, forces you to make foolish decisions, thus ruining your life. Ask me how I know...:uhoh:

If you really want some answers, I can only give you the American perspective; don't know much about the industry over there.

1. You can't make money instructing. Period.

2. It's fairly easy to work up to a twin-turboprop job, either in cargo or medivac. All you have to do is be able to live on sub-poverty wages for 3 years or so. Once you get the t-prop job, you'll be making $50K/year, ie middle class. And that's as far as you'll ever go, unless you're willing to take a regional airline job, and return to the sub-poverty wage for another 10 years or so.

Caboclo

If someone said to me that if I lived on the poverty line for three years then by the end of it I'd have a job on a Turboprop earning (UK equiv) of $50k, I'd take that. And I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be the only one. :\

+1 right here!

+1 here too, as long as i will then be able to pay off the loan (assuming i can get one).

I know the addictive power of flying and yes there are commercial pilots past and present at my gliding club, some long haul, mostly lower budget holiday airlines etc. Some of them are extremely negative about the industry, job satisfaction etc, the rest less so. None are enthusiastic about it although some do acknowledge they’re pretty lucky - mainly that they got in before the industry went t*ts up. One i spoke to today basically said it would be madness to consider it nowadays and unless i could come up with £100k i could forget it anyway (heart-warming stuff! :sad:). Anyway i get on with most of them quite well so hopefully if i could find a way to do it and they could put a word in for me somewhere, i think they would.

Nuno, I’ve heard several people say now that PPL instructing isn’t a viable option as a career in itself and based on RTN’s earlier answer that sort of figure would not be sufficient to get by long term – you’d never afford to repay the loans. As a stepping stone and as experience it’s got to be good though, surely. Maybe a training captain job would be better but it would only make sense to recruit for that from experienced BSJ (big shiny jet) pilots. Likewise i'm now told in today's happy chat that bizjets are mostly flown single crew and they want the experience of someone with lots of BSJ time.



Negativity rules. :ugh:



On a lighter note, does anyone know if gliding hours count towards a PPL?


And yes i've discovered smilies :ok:

So in your own words not one positive thing is said yet you blindly ignore this fact and continue regardless? Think about what you are proposing here...
100+grand of borrowed money to enter a career knowing it's really REALLY tough to get any job and the financial rewards would barely cover loan repayments. It is sheer madness! Would you borrow 100k to buy lottery tickets?

And believe me having a job flying is not winning the lottery. It is a tough, unsociable existance which takes it's toll on family, friends and relationships.

A reality check would be in order?

Oh, and only the very lightest Bizjet is flown single crew. We have 2 pilots, 2 flight attendants and an engineer!

Hence wanting to get more views here, KH. As i've mentioned already, i'm not expecting a pot of gold or anything like. I'm using this forum in addition to personal contacts to gather information in a kind of feasibility study. If the result of that research is that i find out it's not feasible, then that's tough and i need to look in a different direction for my career change. I'm not under any illusions that it's a lottery win.

FlyMonkeyFly

I too learned about flying through gliding and it changed my life completely. Now with over 12k hours and having been through the wringer many times I suggest that you listen to the advice given above. These are professional commercial pilots in the main who are trying to give you a 'steer' towards reality.

However, of course, it is your choice in the end.

Good luck

HWB
Moderator