Originally Posted by
pimashahs
I haven't looked at avionics flight testing at all. I was one of those guys who always wanted to fly and spent thousands of dollars on flight training, went to the regionals and found out the hard way it wasn't for me for many reasons, mainly the pay and quality of life, and to this day after not touching and airplane for over a year, I still want to fly... but i want to make money and learn about the technicality of machines.
Very Good. Saying things like that, IF you can get through an engineering curriculum somewhere and get an AE/ EE/ ME degree, you will be a qualified candidate and a good fit for flight test engineering.
.... I chose a electrical engineering degree because I want to keep my options open and also if for some reason if the FTE or Flight Test Pilot does not pan out, I want to design circuits for cell phones and computers for a chip manufacturer. This is the main reason why I didn't purse AE or a ME degree. You can say that at this point I am still trying to figure out what field I want to go into but I do know that I want to do EE.
If you are worried about being marketable for jobs, any of the above will open doors for you. The least multi-use or multi-purpose of the three is AE, but as an engineering specialty it is not seen as inferior to the other two, superior actually, and if you go applying to non-aircraft manufacturing jobs with an AE degree you are going to have a bit of explaining to do. You can say something like my wife's family is based here to avoid the interview quandary, but the money is no better in EE or ME than it is in AE, and the aircraft industry. Other industries are somewhat more stable and offer more positions than the aircraft industry does, so if airplanes are not that significant you may want to skip it. It sounds like you prefer airplanes though, and with your background there is a definite advantage to sticking with it. I would say get the AE degree, or the EE and expect to make avionics systems.
...I would prefer a flying job, but my priority is to make sure the QOL is good and I get paid well.
Flight test engineering pays well, can pay very well, I was able to push 6 figures last year not doing overtime. I have pals who were "overtime suckers" who wanted to make as much as possible, in it for the money so to speak, several said and I believe they made $175k a year, they would have you believe they were going to hit a quarter million
per annum in the future doing that. One is an EE putting the G3000 into a new airplane. He liked his job enough to do it 6 days a week.
There's good money in airplanes- especially Boeing, Airbus, and government work. I worked for three jet makers over the last few years and was hired and turned down a 2 year Boeing contract that paid quite well. I am a bit of a weird guy, money does not light my fire, I am more about the life experience than the dollar cost of it. Country boy, as they say. Who wants a Porsche when you can go twice that fast in an airplane owned by some company? But if you like money, new Porches, want to have your kids in medical school, the flight test industry will pay for it. If you need more money even than that (>$300k), I suggest going into finance instead of engineering.