waflyboy

I'll suggest that you shouldn't get terribly wrapped around the idea making this a wholly financial decision. If you want to change careers, there are probably other fields to explore that offer entry into a high paying job a lot sooner and with less investment than becoming a pilot.

There is also a degree of risk that is difficult to quantify in such an analysis. The industry has been riddled with bankruptcies, furloughs, and consolidations that have resulted in years of lost income and millions lost in retirement funds. Sure, you can get that in any industry - but perhaps more so in this industry.

Don't sell this to yourself (or your wife) as a good financial decision - even if after a sound analysis, it appears to be. I've found the people who got into this job with such expectations are the hardest to spend four days with when things aren't working out as planned. There are plenty of other (much better) reasons to get into this line of work, and it sounds like you have a few.

As already mentioned, you certainly can do this. But seniority is the primary benchmark of security and quality of life in this business. And in the current fast-moving environment, even a week of seniority makes a difference.

Working on your flying full-time, you can probably get all of your ratings and become a flight instructor about a year after you start. Alternately, flying three days a week (as others have suggested), it might take two years. (Hard to say, exactly.) The easy part is figuring out whether it's financially worth it to forsake a year of salary to get it done in half the time. (Hence, getting to a major airline salary a year sooner.) The hard part is knowing what that extra year of seniority will be worth when things get tough again.

Just food for thought. I'm not trying to deter you, necessarily. Just know that you have to be willing to accept a lot of uncertainty in this career.

I'm also a career changer, and I'd much rather be a flyer for as long as I have the opportunity to do so.