Originally Posted by Cheese7

It seems the only way to get from 250-500 hours these days is flight instructing, so I would plan to get all your ratings through CFI + CFII and maybe MEI, then flight instruct till at least 500 hours. There's banner towing and aerial surveying, but those are seasonal, and I hear survey work is getting competitive these days anyway, so I would plan on going the flight instructor route.

Do you have an idea of how much you are planning to spend on your ratings? The fastest way possible would be to quit your current job and flight train full time, but most people can't afford to do this without taking on lots of debt. You say you have enough funds to go back to school for 2 years without working. This amount of money could vary considerably depending on the school and your living expenses, but I would assume it would be enough to get all your ratings through CFI and CFII ($30k-$70k depending on many factors).

It's a myth that accelerated flight schools can get you your ratings faster or cheaper than a "non-accelerated" part 61 school. If you pair up with a good instructor and a good Part 61 school, you can get your ratings just as fast, and likely cheaper than the big box flight schools. If you are free from attachments (family, house, job, etc.), which it sounds like you are, then you are free to move geographically to find an ideal instructor/school match.

I've had greater success with schools/instructors that don't advertise heavily on the internet. I would figure out what area you want to live in while training, then call a couple DPE's from that area, and explain that you are looking for a good instructor in the area, and you were wondering which instructors are sending them the most prepared students. I know this might sound crazy, but it worked for me. YMMV. Stay away from instructors who are JUST building time and don't have a passion for your success. I'm not saying all flight instructors who are in it to build time are bad, some are good, and the recency of their learning will actually help them teach it to you. It will be pretty easy to spot the one's that don't really care about your success - don't waste your time and money on them. The nice thing about small Part 61 schools is that you can fire your instructor at any time, no strings attached. I've parted ways with 2 instructors in my training, and am very glad I did, as I found 2 others to replace them with, both of which were amazing instructors.

I wouldn't worry about a college degree until you are a First Officer at a regional. You can get an online bachelors while you are building turbine time. You might want to talk to somebody in HR at a major, but from what I hear, major airlines are not discriminating against online degrees. I would look at a BS in Aeronautics, possible from Embry Riddle Worldwide (I know a couple people who did this and had good things to say about it), but I wouldn't waste time with college until you are flying at a regional.

Also, Carl Valeri's Aviation Careers Podcast was really helpful for me when I was at your stage in my training.

Don't get too tied up in the personalities on this forum. There are a lot of Negative Nellie's on here. Stay positive and keep moving forward.

Good luck!