Originally Posted by rickair7777

Sounds like you're going to retire from the military soon...that puts you in a different boat than most folks.

The up-side is that you will have a base income stream to help survive the entry-level, that your family is probably used to moving frequently. Also, if the whole industry collapses (remotely possible if oil doesn't drop or level off) you can coast on your military pension while you re-organize.

The downside for you...

At this point in life are you really up for new adventures, or more interested in settling down somewhere? What does the wife think? Any kids in school? For somebody your age family is THE most important factor...if you lose them to aviation, that shiny RJ cockpit will NOT make up for the loss.

I assume you want to use your GI Bill for flight training...what if aviation falls through? Can you afford to get retrained for another civilian career? (I'm assuming you have a grunt MOS with no real-world marketability).

Considerations:

Do you aspire to major airline international widebody flying? Unless you already have a 4-year degree, odds are slim that you will get there and have enough time left to achieve any quality-of-life.

Would you be happy as a career regional CA? Military retirement plus regional CA pay would likely put you over 100K, which might be enough.

Somebody mentioned that we are in uncharted territory...true statement. Fuel is the big bogeyman, but I'm reasonably confident that artificial jet fuel can be manufactured at a competetive cost this decade. As long as the artificial stuff can be had for $120 equivalent or less, we should be able to sustain the industry. If it gets to $250-300, the airlines are probably DONE...there will be so few pax wealthy enough to fly that the fractionals will be able to handle all of them. It's a reasonable assumption that the american voters will NOT sit still and lose their right to air travel...the government would likely have to do a manhattan project to ramp up artificial fuel production.