A newbie with some questions...
 

I'm currently a 27 year old mechanical design engineer and I'm STRONGLY considering a switch to become a professional pilot. I've always loved aviation, I've flown many times with my friend who flies for a regional airline and I love it. I have no ties, no kids, no wife, no steady girlfriend (yeah, I'm kind of a loser, lol) so I think now would be the perfect time to follow my heart.

I guess I'm just curious if the current pilot shortage will last. I know that in the next few years the Vietnam pilots will be retiring, so I'm curious if pilots in the industry feel that the current traits will continue. I just don't want to invest $40k and 7 months into flight training and another 6-8 months of flying dog poop around the country in a cargo plane, just to have the hiring craze fall on it's face in a year.

Any thoughts???

Thanks!

I think you'll be fine. But you gotta want it bad enough that if the hiring craze does fall flat on it's face, that you'd be happy flying cargo until you can find a better job (I'd rather fly cargo than work for a regional, anyways, but that's just me). The hiring craze ebbs and flows. It's not a matter of there being no jobs, it's more of a matter of the mins going up and it taking you longer to meet those mins.

Cargo is where the money is nowdays.

I'm not gonna deny that money is a motivating factor in what I do, and in my field of engineering, $50k-$60k is the tops. I mean, I WANT to fly, I love to fly, but I don't want to get paid in peanuts for my entire life either.

I've been looking at the FO and Captain pay grades and they SEEM to increase on a yearly scale and with a fairly lucritive outcome in the 8-10 year scheme. The way that I've been justifying this move is by telling myself that I'm only 27, and by the time I'm 35 I could be in a good position both in my career and financially. Is this a bad assumption???

It's going to cost you $80k to get your ratings not including life expenses such as food and shelter. Then you'll make $20k your first year and $30k your second and third. If you can afford to go without income for a year and a half and shell out $80k, then make roughly $20k for two years after that then go for it.

It is expensive and realize that after living expenses and training costs most people are on the hook for student loans topping $100k.

I'm looking into a few "Pilot Factories" (I know that most of you don't like them) where they're claiming $50k-$55k for 0-hour to RJ ready WITH living expenses during training. I've posted a thread in the Flight Training area. I'm hoping to finance around $55k for everything and be done with training in 6-7 months. Any thoughts???

An alternative
 

You may look into the cost of picking up a C-150 and a freelance instructor. It sounds like you want to do things fast though and a bank probably won't give you a bunch of money to spend on gas. I did this a while ago when fuel was much cheaper and sold the plane when I was done. Saved me a lot of money.

As inticing as that sounds, I don't think any bank in their right mind would go for that. Plus, I have a feeling that it would probably be about the same cost with the plane, insurance, fuel and the instructor's fee. Not to mention that finding an instructor willing to fly with me when the regionals are hiring such low hour pilots probably isn't going to happen. It would have been a good alternative a few years ago, but probably not now. Thank you for the "outside the box" idea though. :)

Buying your own plane is a great idea if you're not on the "zero to RJ in six months" fast track. About the only way to get where you want to get, without being a CFI, is a few of the big academies. They do tend to be quite expensive.

$55k may be a lowball. Watch out because I've had friends at those places and they had to pay everything up front. DO NOT DO THAT. You lose all of your control. Plane broken? too bad Instructor's bad? too bad etc.

I think it's a lot like buying a house. You plan to spend X amount and you'll pay X + another 20%. I'd definitely ask the students there what they paid, or better yet some of the guys who graduated. Ask the school for some #s if you don't know anyone personally. If they won't pass them along then move on.