Originally Posted by tomgoodman
That would be unfair, since the Wrights gave us this cautionary advice: "If you desire perfect safety, you would do well to sit on a fence rail and watch the birds. But if learning to fly is your aim, you must take the machine up and learn its tricks in the air."
hmmm. how much is the fence job paying? if its on climbto350 i got dibs.
Hey ATP i realize that after i posted in this thread about 5 times i still havent answered much of what you where asking. Yes people make successful transitions into aviation all the time, at any age. If your flying part 91 you can fly as long as you have a medical. airlines stop at 60 as of now.
In my opinion part 91 flying has the most potential to suck hard or be the greatest job out there. get your CFI and network like a mad bas%ard. alot of aviation outside of the airlines is on call.
Airline schedules are usually no longer than 5 days of flying at a time. then you will have 2,3,4 days off. 135 varies.
135 freight is very often 24/7 on call (alot of night) with a pager and you have to show up like 15,20,30 minutes after it goes off. but freight pays good for the experience level you bring to the job. Some 135 freight places offer 2 weeks on 1 week off, some dont. It can feel like you are living in a cockpit 24/7 sometimes, and you sleep terrible all the time. You will start to feel like your pager is a bomb waiting to go off on your nightstand at 3am.
91 flying is usually passengers calling you a few days in advance to make plans, you are generally on the road with free time. It can be very enjoyable if your single, because rich people go to some cool places. downsides? no control over your life/schedule, you have to kiss butt constantly and you will become intimatly familiar with proper bag loading technique. If your and F/O your life will revolve around cleaning the airplane, getting coffee and ice, and putting news papers out for the passengers to scatter into a billion peices over a 30 minute flight. Downsides as a captain? someone (your F/O maybe) can always sneakily underbid your salary and put you on the street with zero notice. And when rich people have money problems, planes and pilots go with virtually no notice. sorry for the long winded thing if you have anymore questions feel free to ask