shaggieshapiro

Ok guys, I'm a 35 year old male who works as a line service guy in Aviation. I live in Rhode Island. I have been dreaming of becoming a pilot ever since I was 8 years old. I have done my research on becoming a pilot and am discouraged. I feel that I am too old to start traing, because I know that it will at least take me 18 years to get a good paying job. That will make me 53 years old before reeping any benefits. I plan on financing my dream. Am I crazy for wanting to pursue this. I do not have a family and is there any jobs out there? Also, how many hours do the Airlines or fractionals look for?
Thanks
Orlando

Squawk_5543

Not sure where you are getting that 18 year figure from. If you really hustle and commit, you could go from private through CFI in less than a year......instruct for a year.....then have more than enough hours to start applying. There are alot of guys older than you applying for regional jobs so don't think you are alone. In 18 years you could be at the majors buddy....so don't be discouraged. You can begin applying for jobs when you reach 500TT and 50ME. That seems to be the magical number. If you wait until you have 1000TT and 100ME....you can go to a much better regional......and you would get that time quick instructing.

shaggieshapiro

Thanks for the quick reply. I work with alot of pilots and I came up with the 18 years it will take me to make 100 grand a year. I was planning on attending ATP flight school. I've been reading posts from this site and its rather mixed if ATP is a good school or not.
Thanks
Orlando

LAfrequentflyer

Its not mixed. ATP is a good choice for many people.

-LAFF

rickair7777

Some of the better regionals can pay $100K after ten years or so, even sooner if you volunteer to be a check airman.

At age 35 you need to consider...

1) Do I already have any retirement plans in place? If not you might want to focus on that before a career change.
2) Do you have a college degree? If not, that will make it significantly harder to get a major airline job.
3) Family/kids: Do you have them? That will greatly complicate things unless your wife has a high-paying job that is PORTABLE on short notice (ie specialty nurse, MD, or something like that).
4) Are you in better-than-average health? Entry-level regional airline flying is often grueling and can wear down a 24 year old...but he will bounce back after a good night's sleep. Will you?
5) Age 65: The age 60 rule will almost certainly change to age 65 in the next 2-3 years...this will do two things:
a) Slow hiring at all levels for several years in the near future.
b) Give you an extra 5 years to work...but ONLY if you stay in exceptionally good health: Good diet, DAILY exercise, low body fat, minimal booze.
6) If you end up staying at a regional, you probably want to have a back-up career so that you can make money on the side or in case your regional shuts down. Do you have skills you can fall back on?
7) Loans: How are you going to pay for training? If you take out school loans, you will be paying them off for 10-15 years...

As far as ATP goes, all of the big-name "Glossy Brochure" flight schools offer the same training that you can get at your local school, but they do it assembly-line fashion. The training is not going to be better at all with one possible exception: Classroom training. If a school's classroom instructors are low-time cfi's the training will probably be pretty basic...this is typical of small and large schools. If a school uses experienced professionals (off-duty airline pilots, retired airline/military, etc) then the ground schools might be better. But how much is that worth?

The best plan is a small school at your home airport...that way you don't have to move and can hopefully keep your day job until you have the ratings to get a full-time flying job. If that's not an option, I think ATP is the most reasonable out of the big schools.

LAfrequentflyer

The best plan is not a small town FBO. Look at the accelerated flight training programs out there. ATP comes to mind but there are other...

Don't worry about the groundschool. Everything you'll need to pass the FAA and airline interviews can be found in FAA publications and on-line.

-LAFF

shaggieshapiro

I checked with my local FBO and it will take me 18 months to receive my commercial rating and I think that I won't be focused since I will be working. I am leaning more towards ATP, because of the accelerated learning and they claim that you can receive a commercial rating in 5 months. Is that realistic?

Squawk_5543

I have to disagree with you here. I did my instrument, comm single, comm multi, CFI, CFII and MEI in 5 months while working full time....doing my flight training evenings and weekends at my local FBO. In the end I have about a third of the debt you will have going to ATP. Anythings possible.

rickair7777

Dude, I trained at both, and the small FBO is DEFINATELY the way to go, but you have to do your homework!

By contrast the vast majority of the big schools charge WAY to much for the same product you get at your home town patch.

Despite all of the advertising and hype (who do you think PAYS for the full page ads in Flying magazine?) the big schools are limited by the same common denominator as the small school or FBO: The 23 year-old CFI who has apps in at 9 regionals! In fact you are more likely to find an older career CFI (or retired airline/military pilot) at the small school/FBO.

If you can't find a decent CFI at your home airport, then I would consider ATP as a last resort. ATP seems more reasonably priced than the other big schools.

shaggieshapiro

I tried getting a price from one of the fbo's in my area. They were shady about how much it would cost. They told me that everyone is different...yada yada yada. I asked if it would be around 100 dollars an hour and they said it would cost $300.00 an hour. I'm almost tempted to go to prairie or ATP for my private then my fbo for all my other ratings.