Rama

5 years to a major/legacy is incredibly optimistic. In reality you will be in competition with other regional guys looking for the same job. 1,000+ turbine pic is typically the bare minimum for your resume to get a second look. Flying a thousand hours a year is tough and will leave little time for another job. Your career aspirations are not unrealistic, but understand the time frame will more than likely be different than how you are seeing it. There are other jobs such as long haul freight or corporate flying to look into as well. Being a lawyer may help open doors in the corporate world and I think would be worth looking at.

rickair7777

If you look at my math, that's AFTER ratings...so assuming he's starting with 300-ish he should be able to get to 1500 after a year of instructing. That assumes the workload is available. I blocked 40-ish hours a week many times, and I didn't work weekends. Long days to be sure...14 hours including a lunch break. He could block 25 hours/week, take two weeks vacation and still get it done.

What helped was a mix of students...some full-time who trained during the day, some recreational who wanted to train in the evening.

Learflyer

ThePlane....My advice to you would be to go out and get a first class medical certificate (even though you only need a third class for student) to make sure you don't have any underlying medical conditions. There have been cases where people have gotten pretty far into their training only to have to quit because they couldn't hold a first class medical which you'll have to do eventually with an ATP.

Stitches

ThePlane- You implied that you could manage your firm and a regional job if you had 3-4 days off a week. So do it, right now- while you are getting you private and instrument ratings.

Put $10k in the bank to live on for the next 6 months. Thats what you'll be earning in the next few years climbing the regional ladder. If after that time you still want to quit your lawyer job you will have a better idea what you're getting in to and you'll be used to living on next to nothing.

ThePlane

Thanks guys for bringing me back to reality. I appreciate all of the information.

Seems like a lot of luck involved, along with a lot of unknowns.

Still thinking, but changing careers does appear to be less appealing.

JamesNoBrakes

I don't want to sound condenscending or overly negative, but why aren't you considering saving up funds to buy an airplane, or logistics to build something like a Vans RV7/9 (which can be done for under 100K, gives you a brand new plane that performs just like a 300-500K one!), buying a used plane, or joining a flying club, slowly earning certs on the side and eventually instructing on weekends and during free time?

Is your goal to fly and experience all the amazing things and places to go, or solely to "fly jets for an airline"?? If it's the latter, you probably won't be able to experience the former much. Sure, you'll be "flying jets" eventually, but programming the FMS each leg, climbing a bit, putting on autopilot, flying way above the weather, descending, taking it off autopilot during FAC at some point, landing, trust me it gets old real fast, not in every situation/airline/equipment, but it really depends on what you want to get out of it, and if you want to have enough $$$ left over to enjoy life (and flying!) I would highly suggest option 1, not option 2.