Never ever give up!
 

I always wanted to be a pilot, but eventually started late training as a pilot at Cranwell aged 31. Finished my RAF career as a Tornado pilot instructor, and my later civilian career as a 777 Captain.
so never give up! As another has said, training as a pilot is very expensive and health issues can make it difficult later in life. Lots to think about!
A friend tried and gave up on the self funded route but is now a very happy cabin crew member on a major airline having started at age 64!

Anything is possible…however.
You have a couple of major questions to ask yourself: If you stopped contributing to your pension plans today could you still retire at a reasonable age?
Financially you’ll go into a deep hole for the next two years and if you do get employed you will not be making anything meaningful that allows you to save for another 6-8 years, are you ready for that?
We don’t need to know how much you’re making now but have you looked at airline salary scales to have an idea how long it would take to make the same? Add 4 years to that, 2 for training and 2 to get to that airline ( if you’re lucky).
You’ll likely be mid 50’s by the time you equal your current salaries. There is also likely a loan you will need to pay off.
Are you ready for all of that?
Are you financially stable enough to basically freewheel the next 10 years and it won’t bite you?
Can you sell a real estate property or a side business to finance?

On one hand, it’s pretty late to start.
On the other: Better late, than NEVER. (How strong is the desire, and how bad if never fulfilled?)

Consider the outcomes - Worst case: most of the cost is incurred, and the qualification is never quite achieved (Medical, which can come on at any time, or other). More likely the qualification is achieved but a position that pays the bills is never secured. (It can be a long and hard road from bare licence to a decent job.)

Best case - you replace your current income (after significant investment and effort) with a job that is flying. While this is a great thing for most of us, it often has downsides like roster or relocation.

A lot to consider, and being honest with yourself about what’s important and what the possible outcomes are.

Wow that's pretty impressive. I'm just past 40 myself and I can't imagine changing carriers like you did (my wife is currently trying to convince me otherwise).

Just noticed the year on the OP.... Would be curious to hear an update?

Start training at 38
 

Hi all. I’ve read a lot about people’s view on the age when airlines tend not to accept applications for older people.
I’ve always dreamed of being an airline pilot, I went to university and got a degree, started a career and purchased a house and managed to save enough money to start training.
However after all that I’m now 37 and will be 38 shortly.
I live in Ireland so I’m happy to move to another country to train but would essentially like to work for Aer Lingus or Ryanair in Dublin after training is competed.
If I spend the money on training and I’m qualified before I’m 40 are the airlines just going to pass me or ignore me for guys in their early 20s.
I’d like to hear some feedback on these two airlines hiring newly trained cadets at 39/40 years old.

Your age here isn’t the problem, at all. You’re in your 30s, you’ll have 25 years of career if you want to. What might be worth considering is having a really careful reset before your start training. It’s basically going back to school, and it’s fairly full on. Not particularly difficult, but quite intense.

Jobs market wise I’d caution about going into it with blinkers for just a Dublin base. Unless you grab Aer Lingus out of the gate you may well be somewhere else for a few years. Did you apply for the Aer Lingus cadet scheme? That’s your golden ticket. Otherwise BA/TUI, any scheme you can get on is worth a look as your first job is the hard one to get. Get 500 hours and you can then apply almost anywhere as a direct entry pilot, not a cadet. Makes a big difference.

Are you prepared to spend 12-18 months flying from Gdańsk, Inverness, Faro, wherever it may be, before you can settle where you want to?

Advice for 37 year old looking to get into flying.
 

For 15 years I was working for a large manufacturing firm working my way up from the shop floor to a decent managerial position. Ended up getting made redundant in 2020. Changed jobs for about a year but found them all a bit rubbish and the people around me terrible. I looked for a quick way out and ended up retraining and doing my HGV Licence and have been doing Class 1 lorries for the best part of 3 years now. I love the job compared to my old site based roll. Job satisfaction, travelling all over the country, the journey and everything is fantastic. The Hours do not bother me either as I have been used to that all my life. The only thing is the pay which just isn't good enough for what responsibility you have and the future looks the same. I am not really grumbling as I have a very good life and I am in a fortunate position compared to most in this country but after my redundancy it has opened my eyes a little to possibilities. I guess it is very easy to get into a rut with life as it was in my old job instead of pushing forward.

I have done a couple of flight experiences over the years and was a bit of flight simulator fan in my 20's and absolutely loved it but never thought I would ever be able to do it due to cost. I have a general love for engineering, absolutely love my cars and have a very mechanical mind and skillset. I self taught myself to do pretty much everything from welding to stripping and rebuilding engines. I would say I am a very good learner and pick things up quickly. Out of the 100+ drivers at my workplace I am consistently in the top 10 with the KPI's they measure us by. I am also very safety cautious and rule regulated person (My father was a career solider of 22 years) so I think I would fit into the pilots workplace.

Academically I was quite good at school getting 10 GCSE's A-C with A in Maths and Science. I did AS level in Maths and BTEC Diploma in computer programming. Unfortunately my father got cancer and died when I was 20 and it turned my life upside down a bit. I had a child at 21 with my now wife and was just looking for a job to provide for my family. I have worked hard throughout that time to get to this point where I am looking at still working for the next 30+ years and what I want to do with that.

I started browsing about flying and what is needed. I always new it was going to be expensive but there seems to be a lot of different ways to get on the ladder which seems a little confusing.

Financially it is not a problem for me. I have been very lucky with investments and buying my house directly after the financial crash. I have about 50k of capital in cars that I could sell and my mortgage is basically finished so could easily get another 100k on top of that. I can also do add hoc HGV driving all around the country on my days off if needed. That being said I would rather get the most thorough learning that will most likely land me a job at the end rather than the cheapest option out there. I am also under no illusion that this will be long and I will most likely be 50 before I even get the possibility of captain.

I have both UK and Polish passports and my wife is Lithuanian with right to live in the UK so we are pretty fluid in that respect although I would rather train in the UK. I also have a camper van and am totally used to living in a truck so I am quite flexible on being able to travel the country for training although i currently reside in Lincolnshire (About 10 minutes from RAF Coningsby).

I was initially looking at generation CAE MPL easyJet but it seems a couple of posts on here say it is not very good and doesn't live up to its promises?

It seems during March/April a lot of the big carriers start their recruiting is this worth waiting for or am I looking at a impossible lottery with that one?

Am I too old and should just forget it?

Hi there, certainly not too late at all, just a matter of how much you want to make it happen. Once you’ve made 3 posts you should be able to send/receive inbox messages (I think). Be good to exchange some messages, happily talk you through things. I went the modular pay as you go route. I didn’t have all the money required to start, so that worked for me. I would recommend modular, as can do it around work commitments, and by sounds of it you could afford to progress through it quickly. Happy to discuss how I did it. Drop me a message when you can. There are a few other users on here that have good advice, I’d expect to see them drop on this thread fairly soon. Lots of guidance available but ultimately your drive is the overarching factor. Each journey is unique and a lot of it rides on your determination and yourself as a person. Hopefully talk soon.

You’re not too old..!

Glad that’s out the way, you could easily be flying a jet by 40 and a captain on the other side of £150K by 45.

Congratulations on getting to where you are now financially, that sort of outlook may make the Modular route a no-brainer for you. Have to be all over it in terms of your admin and driving yourself forward to finish the training. But that doesn’t look like it’ll be a problem, so you’ll get fully qualified for maybe £65-70K realistically. If you were 18 years old with nothing more than Call of Duty on your CV then having your hand held by an integrated school for an extra £25K might be worth it, but you don’t need that.

You make a good point about the airline schemes. The sponsored ones, BA TUI and Aer Lingus so far would be golden tickets. No financial risk, direct route to the flight deck. They haven’t necessarily opened March/April time, from memory BA’s first iteration was last autumn(?) You can’t be missing them though, there’s already been 5 open wings across the UK industry in the last couple of years which it looks like you’ve not been applying for. You need to carpet bomb those applications and put your all into them. You could be doing a PPL and starting the Modular route with hour building on the side whilst you do that, would be an option. Then if they don’t work smash the ATPLs out and sprint finish the commercial licence.

Easyjet MPL? To be honest most of the hate it gets is probably routed in a bit of jealousy that people can drop the c.£110K into it and go straight into the RHS of an A320. It got a bit prickly over covid, but in reality all you’d have had to do is just wait it out and it was all fine, and that didn’t effect that many people in the grand scheme of things. It gives you a rapid route to getting your 500 hours of jet time. Once you’ve got that in the logbook you can just bin easy and head elsewhere to a BA/DHL/J2 anyway, whatever takes your fancy. Consider it anyway.

And in the grand scheme of things, if you dropped £100K and nothing came from it, would it actually be life changingly bad for you. Based on what you’ve said, probably not? You’d have some more mortgage, but meh. Alternative is to get to 60 and kick yourself until the end of time for not giving it a go. Play your cards right and instead you could be sat in the captain’s seat of a wide body aircraft by that point.

That is a great outlook and thanks for the advice. Now to start putting the hours and research in :).

Hi All,

I am 37 and going to take the plunge with my PPL soon which will hopefully lead to a commercial career. I have always wanted to do it and have a strong fallback career in consulting around cyber and Information security where I have tonnes of experience and certificates if things do not work out. My plan is to do it in phases on a modular basis and run it like a project complete with a plan so I will review if desirable and achievable it is at the end of each phase without putting so much pressure on myself. I will lay out budgets and properly roadmap each and adjust accordingly. I will drop back into consulting work every so often as required.

For additional context I done some PPL training at 24 on the backdrop of a very tough home life where my dreams certainly were not supported and in hindsight was not mentally in the right place due to how difficult it was (Parental Alcoholism x 2). To give an example - I'd called home after completing my first solo very proud of myself only to be met by verbal abuse on the other side of the phone. After that awful experience I packed the flying in and went off, got a degree and worked hard in business and worked hard on myself achieving so much and building belief and cutting out the toxic and now feel ready. I now have a supportive and loving partner by my side now who is the opposite of all that and she is strongly encouraging me to go for it.

So having recently finished a work contract and completed some travel, today I am planning my PPL exams, aeromedical and researching schools. I have about €50k savings available to me now to get started, will dip back into work and save some more and may seek financing to close off when needed.

Looking forward to this new adventure and updating here with progress! Hopefully I can get into a commercial role by 40. I will give it everything I have as I owe it to myself and that kid in myself who always wanted this so badly watching aircraft on the approach into my local airport all day from my back garden.

I’ve just turned 38 and I’m hoping to start studying next month before getting PPL in Spain. Haven’t chosen where yet.
PM me if you can as it’s likely we’ll be training around same timeline.

First of all 37 is not to old, but there is some nonsense advice given by some here.
37 - 40 is not really to old, if you are healthy, and you can bare the financial pain of the training.

I had my PPL when I was 18, struggled to have cash to go further that time, than I ended up in a great business that I did enjoy that lasted for over 20 years. I used to play around on Flight Sim, but I stayed away from real airplanes, as I never saw myself being able to make it a career, due to my prescription on my glasses, what I initially was not aware of was that the EASA regulations had changed since I took my PPL when I was 18.

Around 18 - 19 years later I discovered the new medical regulations after I had decided to redo my PPL, I was now around 38. It was fly as required, and I already had a logbook with around 250 hours, so I did not need to do any hour building. As I was still running business, I decided at the age of 40 to start my modular training, I did it part time over approx 2 years, I was done training at the age of 42, and I got my first job at the age of 43 with a total of around 300 hours, RHS with a solid good European company (before Brexit) I had to commute 4 hours by flight, every 7 and 9 days, for around 2 years I was home around 3 out of 10 days. It was part of the reasons that it cost me my marriage, there were other reasons too, but the commuting certainly did not help.

During this journey, I would like to mention that there was age issues with recruitment with some companies, Ryanair did that when I tested them once by changing my age in the dropdown box, and applied with an age of 10 years younger than I really was, within few days I had an email confirming interview date, I emailed them and told them I had inadvertently made a mistake with "year" drop down box, and gave them my correct age, and within days my interview was cancelled.
So my experience is that it is harder get first job when older, but it is not impossible.

I was to this month 42 turning 43 when I got my first airline job, and at the age of 51 I got my Command with a major European airline, I was delayed by 2 years because of Covid. I enjoyed the job before I got my Command, but becoming Captain made the job great. At "our" age, you don't want to spend to long time in the RHS, hence when I say consider your options for future career progression, long haul you might never get LHS, some short haul companies might also take long time. Wizz, Ryanair and Easyjet it generally goes quite fast.

First have in mind when you go modular, there are many airlines that will not employ you unless you have experience. The only companies that I believe in UK might employ would be Ryanair, Wizz. Logan Air, maybe Titan if you have done the modular route, the integrated will give you many more options. I personally dislike those training schools, because I do believe they are overpriced, but on the other hand they do increase the chance of employment, so at an older age you need to try to deal yourself the best cards possible,

After Brexit, you are limited to UK companies, if you want to apply outside you need to consider first if you have the right to work, than getting the EASA license / medical, and many companies have language requirements.

I am not a big fan of the MPL schemes, but in fairness they are great options as they give you a guaranteed job. And those who talk down the easyJet MPL scheme clearly does not know what they are talking about. For an older candidate it is the best way, sure there will be some hard times in the start, but you generally have good career path, and can reach the LHS within 6 - 7 years, which is not bad.

What you need to consider is what you would like to do, some seem to believe easyJet is just a "stepping stone", there are few European short haul companies that will give you better conditions, if you want to be home every day, part time options etc., go to BA / Euroflyer short haul and you will be living in hotels everyday, long haul again is another game, getting LHS Long Haul with BA might never be achievable. So these are things to consider.
Wizz offers quick career progression, maybe the quickest, but you will have not many good benefits, and you need to work hard for your money, as basic pay is low, flight pay is the largest part of your pay. So if you end up some months sick, that won't be great.
But in the start beggars can't be choosers, so nothing wrong going 1 - 2 years with companies such as Wizz, get your experience / hours and move on.

Personally I love to be back home in my own bed each night, seeing my kids and wife, sure can be hard sometimes, but it is worth it in the end.
So my advice would be try to get into some of those sponsored programs, or MPL programs, I also believe Wizz have some cadet program, but again they can also be a bit funny about the age thing, they might not want to pay your training in those cases from what I experienced. I am not so updated anymore on all these various programs available.
So do some research first, the most important thing is that you get an interview after your training is completed, or even better you pass the interview before your training starts.

Financially it might be hard for the first 3 - 4 years, depending on what you are used to from before of course. But don't delay your start, because it does not get easier with age.

I have just got my Class 1 medical and I start my PPL training in two weeks. I live in the countryside and plenty of access so can do two lessons a week so hoping to get my PPL by the end of spring. I had a bit of a ballache with my class 1 medical. Everything was great but I suffered with white coat syndrome and had to get my NHS GP to give me a 24 hour blood pressure monitor and I had to wait over a month for my results. It came back fine 120/80 and I now have my class 1. Have secured the finance to get my licence but am going to go modular. I did look at the the programs but not earning money for two years would have been a bit of a stretch and too much of a risk. I am also in the process of getting my polish citizenship from my mother's side so will be going for the dual licence route. I have an air field that can do everything up to CPL and will do the theory online. I just need to find somewhere to do my dual cpl.

My only issue is the place that is capable of doing PPL-MEIR I am.on the waiting list to join because they are out of capacity. There is a very local place that has capacity but can only do PPL but I would be able to do it quickly.

My only worry is that if I take up the offer and do my PPL at the local place that when the other place contact me with availability I will have to turn them down and ask to come back later after my theory and just need my ratings and MEP which I worry they will want to do?

I know guys who've started flying in their 40s, I wouldn't stress too much about the age thing - only issue is the cost of training and the time gap between finishing training and finding your first job - if you really want to short cut the system albeit highly unethical and frowned upon by fellow aviators is P2F; I know guys who did it and literally got on a jet the best part of a decade before me.

I probably am too old, but hey!
 

I'm going to chime in here, if for no other reason than to make all you "young'uns" feel a bit better...
I'm 53 and having previously passed all ATPL exams in 2001, I went on to gain a JAA CPL(A), ME-IR, FI(A), Examiner, DA, blah blah... My career intentions back then were to hour-build as an instructor, then go airline flying. Then 911 happened and I was lured into the world of instructing, being a CFI, examining, some display flying, and some corporate/comms flying.

For 15 years I accrued around 6000 hours having a great time doing just about everything in aviation other than flying an airliner.
I effectively quit flying back in 2013 to be a hands-on dad but only intended to be away for a couple of years before returning to the skies. Anyway, life events overtook me and I let everything expire.

Fast forward 12 years and an "unforeseen" event has forced me to re-evaluate my life options. Put plainly, I've been miserable from the day I stopped flying as it really was my only ambition in life. It very much came to define me and I achieved it and did pretty bloody well at it. Stopping placed an enormous and persistent "monkey" on my back that I haven't been able to shake off. Whereas I expected the passing of time would make it easier to deal with, the opposite has been true. So, here I am...

I'm going to go back to ground school, do the ATPLs, the ME-IR and all of that stuff again with the aim of somehow getting to fly commercially again in some capacity and hopefully, take care of this unfinished business.

It'll probably take me a year to complete everything and then, at the age of 54, the challenge of getting a proper flying job is likely to be extremely tough. However, I do believe it is possible. I'm ok with commercial ME-IR instructing if that becomes a thing. I'm ok with a little regional turbo-prop job. I won't own my own house anymore but that's just a detail! It's going to be very tough indeed but if there's one thing I have learned, it's a lot easier wishing your flying job was a bit more glamourous, rather than wishing you'd never quit in the first place!

Currently, I'm in the process of untangling exactly what I will and won't have to repeat or re-do. I'm optimistic that I'll receive some dispensation, but not banking on it. If I don't try, I will go to my grave never knowing. :-)

I'll chime in. I'm 48, and I've had a great career in academia. I'm currently professoring at a university somewhere in Britain, - I won't tell you where. I teach a humanities subject; nothing to do with STEM.

I've just finished my ATPL theory, and I'm about to throw in the teaching and dive headfirst into the world of CPL MEP IR. I'm doing dual, UK/EASA, just because I can. I do have both medicals and both PPLs; and I did dual theory.

I'm on about 600 hours, most of them in aerobatic aeroplanes (and gliders before that). Like secondtimearound , I've very little interest in the world of airliners. I'd be delighted to teach, but I know that won't cover my outgoings, - even given that my adult son has moved out (and now earns a lot more than I ever did, as an IT guy in finance), and my mortgage has been almost paid off.

I've done the sums, I need about 60K a year to be comfortable. 50K is probably the minimum. I could live on.

So what are my options? My initial thoughts are: instructing for CPL MEP IR, survey, playing the bad guys for the RAF with Draken, taking people up in Spitfires and suchlike, if I can break into that business. Possibly corporate. Possibly running some sort of aviation micro-business.

I'm very lucky because I have lots of connections in the world of non-airliner aviation. I feel I just need to put one foot in front of the other, and then something will come up.

And even if it doesn't, - I can always dust off my suede patches and go back to academia. I don't have suede patches, but you know what I mean.

Now please, Pprune, tell me that I'm wrong and I'm wasting my time and money! :-)

I didn't say I have no interest in flying for an airline, more that I'm realistic about my chances of doing so! :-)

Afternoon all,
Ive had a skim over some of you folks situations here and figured I'd put my own in in the hope of getting a bit more of a tailored response.

I'm 39...(40 this year!). I made it to the final stage of BA's Speedbird Academy recruitment last year but unfortunately didn't secure a spot. Feedback call told me I only missed it by a couple of marks. I'm definitely going to give it another crack again this year and hopefully pull it off this time round, although having to start the application from scratch again puts me back amongst the thousands applying.

If I dont make it this time then Im going to have to weigh up my options regarding financing training myself. I have a place offer at Skyborne for their intergrated course but I only have around £12k to my name, which leaves me just a tad short!. I have no mortgage, no kids and a rusty old van so my outgoings are fairly minimal however my job isn't the best paid. It does offer my the flexibility to live wherever I like though and I do rotations of 3weeks on 3weeks off.

I'd appreciate anyone's advice/opinions on what my best option would be should I choose to persue training if I dont land a Speedbird spot. Baring in mind my age:

1 - Somehow take out a loan to cover the Skyborne Intergrated training.
2 - Modular training somewhere....either training on my off weeks or going "full time" modular. I'll most probably need to take out some kind of loan for this too.

Im aware I could still give an airline plenty of years until retirement once qualified but would probably need to get qualified ASAP to make it worth it.
Or do I forget the dream and make do with getting my PPL then flying for fun whenever I can afford.

All thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.