mmmm bacon

Here's my situation:
- 38 y/o
- I do not have an undergrad degree and don't see myself pursuing one.
- I'm (slowly and painfully, but I love it) learning Mandarin and willing to relocate (with or without my family) to China.
- My spouse makes decent money and her job can be portable if needed.
- I'm presently working a four-state-territory road-warrior sales job that gives me enough flexibility to take 1 to 4 weeks off at a time for flight school times. Once I'm flying F/T, I'll have to walk away from that income. I also have a meager-but-real P/T income that I can keep earning while flying F/T, but probably only if I stay in the U.S.
- I refuse to go into training debt - intend to do all self-financed training in ~$10k blocks, saving cash for each block until able to pay the next one in full. The problem, I'm old, so I need to assemble the cash and complete the training blocks in two to three years... ouch.
- If I do this, I'll consider myself very lucky if I can fly for about 20 years.
- I'm willing to consider career paths initially heavy in CFI time with foreign students, especially Mandarin speakers.
- I'm also willing to fly ex-pat, for as long as needed - though I would strongly prefer China, Emirates or South Africa if not working in the U.S.
- My long term goals are less focused on income and more on lifestyle/quality of life. I would consider myself successful if I could spend the second half of that 20 year career earning $50k per year with good off-time and some flexibility.
- We won't see any income from it until we retire and move there, but we have a profitable tenant income farm to retire to, so pensions or building a huge IRA/401k is not a significant concern.

I know that's probably not enough background, but this post is already getting protracted. So, given that back story, I have three over-arching questions:

1) What, if any, training/working career path makes sense for my situation?

2) I'm in Kansas City, but willing to travel within 24 hours drive for the 1 week to 1 month flight school blocks I mentioned earlier. With that in mind, any specific school recommendations/suggestions? (yes, I know there is a whole sub section of the forum devoted to flight school recommendations but I'd like to avoid double posting my back-story if possible)

3) Speaking of schools, what are everyone's thoughts on flight schools with guaranteed or near-guaranteed job placements? On the surface it sounds like a no-brainer - go to a school that operates as a feeder for one or more regional passenger lines or cargo lines. But then you also hear nightmarish horror stories like Gulfstream International Airline's feeder school in Florida and how they got students unwittingly lured into working for a seemingly shady/un-safe airline with the promise of an open FO chair upon graduation... and then you begin to wonder if there are any legitimate feeder schools working with carriers worth working for.

rickair7777

Not a problem depending on what type of flying you want to do. Your age will limit your career "dues to payoff" ratio, so hopefully your expected payoff has more to do with flying airplanes and less to do with money.

Problem. Without a four-year degree you'll need significant luck to land in a good spot. I'm assuming that no regional airline will be a good spot for very long before they get downsized/liquidated in favor of younger, cheaper pilots at another regional.

Slight benefit. But China has plenty of folks who speak chineese...it's skilled pilots they're short of. Generally china only hires pilots with experience in the specific type of airplane involved...so you'd have to get that at a regional.

That's good.

That's good.

Generally folks who have been around the block advise debt avoidance...but at your age you don't have too much time to waste.

I imagine you could get into some sort of turbine flying by age 45 (regional or part 91/135).

That might be a good use of your language skill...but I'd call some of those flight schools and see if they even care about the language. Those training programs may have an "english only" policy since english is the international language of aviation and foriegn students often struggle with it. That was the case at one school I worked at...the native language was verbooten on campus.

Those jobs will be almost as hard to get to as US major airline jobs. China might be easier but only if you have time in type. Also be aware that foriegn airlines are VERY strict on medical screening...if you're not astronaut material you'll never pass. They get into BMI, cholesterol, medical history, injury history, phsych, etc.

That should be achievable.

At you're age you'll need a solid retirement plan already in place.

Airline track: Train at a school that will hire you as an instructor (make sure you can build time quickly and get some ME time too), then CFI for them to 1500 hours, then regional, then hope the majors will hire you (don't plan on staying at a regional for 20 years, that probably won't work out for you). Possible that lower-tier majors will regularly accept non-college grads over the next decade but that's still up in the air.

Corporate: CFI at a busy GA field with lots of corporate activity and network like crazy...talk your way into whatever turbine opportunities and work your way up the ladder.

Those programs have a very poor track record. The ones that place you at a regional *might* be a better bet for the next few years since demand for regional pilots may be high.

The ones that offer to hire all grads as CFI's are usually bad news..."hired" often means independent contractor "on call" waiting for work, but the call only comes once a month...long, long road to 1500 hours at 1-2 hours/month.

As far as getting a CFI job, schools do tend to hire their own graduates (for several reasons):

- They know you already
- You're familiar with their procedures
- They can tell prospective students that they'll hire them too.

Spend your training dollars wisely...in addition to training, you should be buying a high-probability (but not guaranteed) job opportunity. A school that has big foriegn contracts will probably need more CFI's than a small outfits that trains locals. Make sure you can build some twin time as an MEI. You will need AT LEAST 25 ME, probably 50 ME.

OnCenterline

I tend to agree with most of Rick's response. Learning Chinese may be a personal satisfaction for you, but he's right...to them, learning English is much more important, and some of the terminology doesn't always translate the way you want it to.

You don't mention your income, but if you can save $10,000 in blocks, I'd say just save it up until you have all that you need. If you can do that, then you can do all of your training at once, and it will go faster. What I am NOT saying is that you should turn it all over to a school at once--pay as you go.

Okay...that said...not having a degree is going to be a severe detriment. You might get hired by a regional here in the US with no problem without one, but within the US, you will be severely limited beyond that. The regionals are undergoing a fundamental restructuring right now, and the company you start with may not survive or be a place you want to stay.

I don't know if foreign carriers emphasize the degree as much (I think Emirates does), but as was noted, time-in-type, or time in a certain size plane matters. The issue for you in focusing on China is that by the time you are competitive, they may not have the need for you that they do now. Or, as noted, the physical gets you.

I'm not going to say what you should or shouldn't do, but I do want you to see the reality for what it is. In this case, your age combined with the lack of a 4 year degree is a pretty heavy anchor for doing much more than being an RJ pilot in the US. If you want to limit yourself to that, by the definition you provided, you will succeed (assuming the lifestyle shock doesn't negatively affect your family life). Realistically, right now, you're 5-7 years (and 5 is very, very optimistic) from being in a position to start standing out from other applicants, and that's if all goes exactly according to plan....which, this being aviation, it won't. That's an FAR.

Here's the fastest time line I think you could do, without taking breaks:

14-18 months to get through your CFIIMEI at All ATP or similar. That finishes you with 250-300 hours;

18-24 months (closer to 24) to get to 1500 hours;

get hired by a regional, and allow 3-4 months for training with all of the potential pitfalls included therein;

a minimum of 18 months (from your start date) as an FO to get the 1,000 hours of 121 time as an FO that is now required to upgrade--if it happens faster, great;

be awarded an upgrade bid with no delays due to stagnation at your regional (you will be making $35-40K);

upgrade training takes 2 months or so, after which you will be on reserve, which always seems to be longer and worse for captains. Allow 24-36 months to reach 1,000-1,500 TPIC, but you'll be making the $50K+ you targeted.

Assuming that you will be competitive with such relatively low time, on the low end, the time line is 6 years, on the high end of what I postulated, it's 8 years....If you do pursue this, use the time when you are instructing and just flying the line to knock out the 4 year degree.

All of this also assumes that nothing else knocks you off track, such as a divorce, a medical issue, family emergency, finances, etc.

If you want to do this, you need to thoroughly evaluate the totality of the commitment.

PRS Guitars

All good points above

If you don't have a degree, you shouldn't feel rushed. You won't likely make it to a Major (if you even wanted that) so you don't need to get in while the hiring is hot. I'd recommend saving up and doing the training all at once, or using a local school and flying two to three times a week.

What is your income at your sales job, and time off/QOL, autonomy etc? What is your income potential there? Sales rep was pretty much my backup plan if I didn't get hired by an airline leaving the AF. You could just work on your private certificate a few days a week. Maybe you could use general aviation in your sales job. To me that would beat the tough road that you're trying to go down, by a mile. Flying by yourself, when/where you need to go and still have the higher (I assume higher than $50k) sales income. Or after you get the private, you could start pursuing your additional ratings, maybe start instructing on the side, and then try to work your way into some corporate work. All while still making a comfortable (lucrative, hopefully) sales income.

Bottom line 38 is not old at all if you're not pursuing a Major. Flying professionally sounds great, but it is still a job. Take it from me it's not fun taking a major pay cut at age 40, even if your spouse works.