Justin,
There are many ways to become a pro pilot.
As for myself, I went a slightly different way.
My first mistake was getting a degree in Aviation. Don't do that. Art will be a fun one.
I graduated with my Multi/inst/comm. In 2003 and the industry was still bad from 9/11.
Im from Colorado, I was sick of it. Surfing was always a dream for me. Only logical option was to move to Hawaii. I sent resumes to anyone with an airplane for months. One day, some dude asked if I want to interview for a crappy airline flying in the right seat of a canavan. Hell ya I did. Got the job and moved to Maui. I learned to surf and the flying time built up fast. 6 months later I became the PIC of an awe inspiring Caravan. Life was great, surfing, flying, beer drinking on the beach. Good times. The cash flow was minimal. After about 2 years of that it was time for some Multi time. I got a job with a part 135 cargo company directly in the left seat. I flew BE-99/BE-1900s. The money was good and the flying was still fun. Hawaii is a fun place to fly. Sure there were some late nights, flying solo at 0300 with no autopilot. Makes you a good stick. All the other dudes flying with me got "googly eyed" for shiny jets, and left for the regionals. I stayed and racked up 2000 hrs turbine PIC. All while having a great time, with great people, in a great place. I did not want to PIC a 135 freight dog for ever, so I started looking around. No longer in Hawaii, there were no jobs. Thanks to GO!. No offense GO! pilots. After searching around I found nothing short of a job starting at 20K. Then one day, a guy called me. He said he was the Chief Pilot of a Large Fractional operation. He was the neighbor of my dads old drinking buddy. He walked in my resume and I got hired. You never know where your next hook up will come from. Life is still great. I live back in Colorado. I got 35 days of snowboarding in this winter and have loads of free time to do anything I want. Granted I'm single and have no kids. The Moral of the story is: Do what makes you happy. Flying is not my soul passion. I just use it to go cool places and do cool stuff.
On the other side, I have been FO to lots of retired airline guys that still need to work because there retirement vanished. Just like everyone has said before me, stability in aviation is not going to happen. I might get axed soon. If so, I'm going to Indo and surfing.
Cheers
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