Worth becoming a pilot?

GerryDerpy

Hi all,

I am hoping some commercial pilots can help me.

I am thinking of switching careers and becoming a pilot. My situation:
32 yr old
Mech engineer (B.Eng)
Working for 10 years
Current salary €60k
40 hrs per week

How much would it cost to self fund my training?
How long before I match my current salary?
How many hours per week for short haul?
Anyone else made a similar jump?

Thanks

737max

Why? Engineering is more intersting.
Look at youtube videos of engineers in the likes of Continental or Luk or VW working on world changing technology in the automotive area.
Maybe you are just not getting interesting work in the locality where you work.
Pilots aren't glorified bus drivers but then again they aren't shaping the future in the way Engineers in interesting roles are changing the world.

GerryDerpy

Yep work is no longer interesting. The leading edge design jobs are not plentiful. Most of my work involves stretching old tech as far as possible.

At least as a pilot I know what I will be doing will interest me.

degsie

I understand that pilots are in demand at the moment.

Pat Dunne

Basically, if you have a spare €100k and around 12/18 months to put aside before earning a "bob or two. You should have a decent chance of landing something, provided you pass all the exam requirements.

GerryDerpy

Pat Dunne wrote: »

Basically, if you have a spare €100k and around 12/18 months to put aside before earning a "bob or two. You should have a decent chance of landing something, provided you pass all the exam requirements.

I would be able to invest that money, but what is the pay back likely to be?

beauf

I think you have do work out the sums.

Will an older pilot be viable for an airline who has to invest in the pilot.
If you don't manage to complete the training, or get a job, is it worth the cost.
How many years will it take you to re-coup the cost.
If you are successful will you be financially better off, how long will it take to recoup the training.
Will it suit the lifestyle you want.

PPRune is the place to go ask a load of questions.
Pilots often have a very negative viewpoint. But I think they don't consider alternatives careers.
I know a few experienced pilots who considered changing career, but changed their minds after doing a few interviews outside of flying.

beauf

GerryDerpy wrote: »

I would be able to invest that money, but what is the pay back likely to be?

If if all works out great. But it might not. Thats the risk.

http://assets2.iflycoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ROI-Graphic.jpg

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/10761957/Want-to-be-a-pilot-Count-the-cost-first.html

https://www.flightdeckfriend.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-train-as-a-pilot/

duskyjoe

Gerry , I have worked with many pilots that came late to the game. As previous poster said you'd want to have 100k in the kitty to be the finished product and I dare say another 50-60k to live and see daylight after 18months. After all that is done there is no guarantees nevertheless I know many a guy in my age group (50's) whose miserable trudging in and out everyday to work and would work for half their salary to be happy. If you have no commitments I'd say go for it. With a mechanical engineering background, exams will not be an issue but before you take any plunge or commitment go get yourself a class one medical check up as the last thing you want is when you have ploughed serious dough into flying school to find out you have a latent medical problem that is prohibitive in commercial flying activities. Bestsa luck in your decision.

737max

GerryDerpy wrote: »

Yep work is no longer interesting. The leading edge design jobs are not plentiful. Most of my work involves stretching old tech as far as possible.

At least as a pilot I know what I will be doing will interest me.

I think you need to look further afield.
The guys and girls in my German language classes were ex-pats working on stuff like forced induction/turbos, crash test dummies, self-driving cars, etc... some of it more theoretical in institutes or associated with Universities, some of it more practical in large and mid-size enterprises. They were all working on stuff that you'd never see in Ireland... and the other thing was that the organisations had the money to do stuff rather than scraping by and trying to politik projects past obstacles.

martinsvi

I am in a very similar position, same age as OP, well paid job in the IT industry, slowly realizing that all the cool stuff nowadays is being made in India/Ukraine/US. Local jobs are for stretching the life span of useless junk or product configuration.. Not fun.

Anyway some few years ago decided to take the plunge and see how it goes. Initially I did my PPL and thought I should be happy with that. Appetite grew as time went on, especially during the winter time when flying is rare, my mind was no longer sitting at the desk in an office, it was long departed for the sky. Finished the ATPLS some time ago, now doing my CPL/ME/IR training, hope to have it finished by the end of October. Cost wise, assuming I will finish my CPL/ME/IR within the budget I should have spent some 50k on it. I still need to do MCC after CPL so that's another 5k.

You're talking about the investment and payback.. I think this is an incorrect mindset. You have to love to fly. When you set out to do your training it is pretty much a gamble - if things work out for you, congratulations, you'll be a captain before 40 bringing home 6 digit salaries. If something doesn't go to the plan, you either end up with nothing our you have a licence that you end up using by going to your local flying club and flying around in a Cessna. It's all about your perspective - can you tolerate such a loss? The only and I mean only reason I dare to take these steps is because I know, that if no-one hires me, I will continue flying for fun. If you don't share the same view, the gravity of this go/no go decision might be much higher.

Anyway be wary of online forums such as Pprune, and don't shoot me for saying this -but here too.. There are a lot of bitter people, a lot of opinionated people, who think they know the industry or think they have the answer to all the questions. The truth is all the answers are in you, it is totally up to you, your decision and so on. You have to consider your commitments, family, any financial ties. 32 is definitely not too late to change your career, in fact it's the right time to do it, you have plenty of soft skills to transfer from one field to another but plenty of spark left in you to learn something new. However you need to understand that chances of kickstarting your flying career in Ireland are slim if not none-existing. You will have to move. If there's something tying you down it's up to you how you deal with it.

Check out Mentour Pilot youtube channel, he has lot's of good stuff in there that should answer most if not all your questions.

one last thing - you don't need to be a genius to get through the ATPL writtens.. but you do require a truck load of motivation. Before you sign up to anything, make sure you have plenty of that stuff!

Dingle_berry

Should someone obtain an fATPL, ME/IR, MCC and JOC but find themselves unable to self fund a TR or get DE, are there any other viable options for gainful use of the licenses and endorsements?
What are the requirements for keeping the above current / renewed? As in do you have months or years to get them all on your cv and find a job?

martinsvi

Dingle_berry wrote: »

Should someone obtain an fATPL, ME/IR, MCC and JOC but find themselves unable to self fund a TR or get DE, are there any other viable options for gainful use of the licenses and endorsements?
What are the requirements for keeping the above current / renewed? As in do you have months or years to get them all on your cv and find a job?

fATPL will stay alive as long as you have the IR. ME/IR is valid for one year, you can renew it every year, so it's not like you lose all your training. MCC/JOC have no expiry.

There are plenty of opportunities these days to get in the industry without having to pay for Type Rating. You just need to dig a little and not run where everyone else is going. Cargo offers a lot of opportunities for small hour pilots, West Atlantic, Sprint Air, DHL, CargoLux have all been known to hire low hour guys and bond their TRs. From passenger carriers you have the likes of Luxair, Aegean among some other smaller regionals..

if all else fails, +8k for instructors rating and keep waiting for the opportunities..

4068ac1elhodqr

Won't the robots be steering the commercial planes in the not too distant future?
Robots don't want any pesky holidays nor sleep, or cans of Stella, just the odd squeeze of oil.

Sullysark

I  recently completed my training at the large integrated school in the south of England. My training costs all in where close to £120,000 including type rating. Not including my living costs, spending 7 months in the USA plus England id add another 10k on. To echo what others have said, ATPLS aren't that hard, its the time frame and shear amount of stuff you will have to learn in the time frame. You will spend hours questioning why you need to know 95% of it, well I did anyway. 
Bare in mind you won't have a salary for nearly two years,  I personally had to wait a few months on my type rating with Easy, as did all I finished with. 
I trained with a guy who was 52! Now at British Airways, So you're definitely not too old to change career. 
Avoid Pprune, it's filled with disgruntled pilots. Best advice I could give is, decide what route you want to go down Modular or Integrated, personally I only looked at integrated. Visit the schools, be that CTC, FTE or CAE or the many others out there and chat to the guys, try avoiding the marketing team. Talk to the cadets, or ex cadets they'll tell you the reality.

martinsvi

Franklin Unsightly Staple wrote: »

Won't the robots be steering the commercial planes in the not too distant future.
Robots don't want any pesky holidays nor sleep, or cans of Stella, just the odd squeeze of oil.

they can't even make a reliable self driving car, I think the profession is safe for another 40 years or so..

martinsvi

Sullysark wrote: »

I  recently completed my training at the large integrated school in the south of England. My training costs all in where close to £120,000 including type rating. Not including my living costs, spending 7 months in the USA plus England id add another 10k on. To echo what others have said, ATPLS aren't that hard, its the time frame and shear amount of stuff you will have to learn in the time frame. You will spend hours questioning why you need to know 95% of it, well I did anyway. 
Bare in mind you won't have a salary for nearly two years,  I personally had to wait a few months on my type rating with Easy, as did all I finished with. 
I trained with a guy who was 52! Now at British Airways, So you're definitely not too old to change career. 
Avoid Pprune, it's filled with disgruntled pilots. Best advice I could give is, decide what route you want to go down Modular or Integrated, personally I only looked at integrated. Visit the schools, be that CTC, FTE or CAE or the many others out there and chat to the guys, try avoiding the marketing team. Talk to the cadets, or ex cadets they'll tell you the reality.

good points here but just to counterbalance - I did everything in a modular way combining everything with full time work. This way it was cheaper and to this date I haven't lost a fraction of my regular income. Will I get the job at the end of it is another question and only time will tell..

Are you flying on line now?

4068ac1elhodqr

martinsvi wrote: »

they can't even make a reliable self driving car, I think the profession is safe for another 40 years or so..

Ah but once they do..... Particularly relevant when there is cost savings to be made, some bean-counter will phase the bots in with a stroke of a pen.

Of course you would always need some level of hands-on control in case of system failure.

You could argue that an automated HGV convey might have many more calculations/decisions per second than the average flight does.

ek9er

Depends on what you are looking for. Yeah you'll need the money to front yourself, but the days of staying in one flying job for your career are long gone so be prepared to move around and look for the next gig. I started 9 years ago.. been in 5 European countries then the Middle East back to Europe for a little while then china. Not an ideal career family wise! Salary can be exponential but sadly not unless you can travel. 60k might get you a cpl now chances are another 40 to get onto an airliner. Now that seems worth it being able to take home 25k a month and commute back home working 5 weeks then 3 off. But to be financially stable would have taken too long on an unstable wage in Ireland or Europe.
Realistically factor in 7 years to recover from debt and if you can't move around then the salary that can be earned close to home may not be worth it!

martinsvi

Franklin Unsightly Staple wrote: »

Ah but once they do..... Particularly relevant when there is cost savings to be made, some bean-counter will phase the bots in with a stroke of a pen.

Of course you would always need some level of hands-on control in case of system failure.

You could argue that an automated HGV convey might have many more calculations/decisions per second than the average flight does.

let's not derail this thread by talking about autonomous/remote piloting aircraft, believe me when I say bean counters are pretty powerless when it comes to regulation and certification standards. Boeing 777/787 still run on Intel 80186/386 chips by the way, your phone has more computing power than those yokes..

Sullysark

martinsvi wrote: »

Sullysark wrote: »

I  recently completed my training at the large integrated school in the south of England. My training costs all in where close to £120,000 including type rating. Not including my living costs, spending 7 months in the USA plus England id add another 10k on. To echo what others have said, ATPLS aren't that hard, its the time frame and shear amount of stuff you will have to learn in the time frame. You will spend hours questioning why you need to know 95% of it, well I did anyway. 
Bare in mind you won't have a salary for nearly two years,  I personally had to wait a few months on my type rating with Easy, as did all I finished with. 
I trained with a guy who was 52! Now at British Airways, So you're definitely not too old to change career. 
Avoid Pprune, it's filled with disgruntled pilots. Best advice I could give is, decide what route you want to go down Modular or Integrated, personally I only looked at integrated. Visit the schools, be that CTC, FTE or CAE or the many others out there and chat to the guys, try avoiding the marketing team. Talk to the cadets, or ex cadets they'll tell you the reality.

good points here but just to counterbalance - I did everything in a modular way combining everything with full time work. This way it was cheaper and to this date I haven't lost a fraction of my regular income. Will I get the job at the end of it is another question and only time will tell..

Are you flying on line now?

Yeah, I'm on the line. I've a serious amount of respect for guys who do it the modular route, particularly the ground school element. Did you go through BGS? 
Flexibility is key, to add to what the other poster wrote. I'm based in continental Europe, and I'll be here for a while yet. If you have a family, prepared to be based in Madrid or Warsaw.

martinsvi

Sullysark wrote: »

Yeah, I'm on the line. I've a serious amount of respect for guys who do it the modular route, particularly the ground school element. Did you go through BGS? 
Flexibility is key, to add to what the other poster wrote. I'm based in continental Europe, and I'll be here for a while yet. If you have a family, prepared to be based in Madrid or Warsaw.

yep, BGS, my annual leave was spent on commuting to Clevedon for revision courses and exams.. let me tell you mrs martinsvi was not impressed!

it's good that after all this money you are actually working and easyjet seem to be a good place to work from what I hear too.. Generally not everybody sees a fruitful finale after spending all that cash, time and effort

Sullysark

martinsvi wrote: »

Sullysark wrote: »

Yeah, I'm on the line. I've a serious amount of respect for guys who do it the modular route, particularly the ground school element. Did you go through BGS? 
Flexibility is key, to add to what the other poster wrote. I'm based in continental Europe, and I'll be here for a while yet. If you have a family, prepared to be based in Madrid or Warsaw.

yep, BGS, my annual leave was spent on commuting to Clevedon for revision courses and exams.. let me tell you mrs martinsvi was not impressed!

it's good that after all this money you are actually working and easyjet seem to be a good place to work from what I hear too.. Generally not everybody sees a fruitful finale after spending all that cash, time and effort

I went to BGS for a tutorial myself actually for PoF, left the house at 5am for a drive to Bristol where i thought it was... yet through the mountains I went into the middle of no where! Me and the BGS Bank became very good friends until the small hours for many months! 
I'm quite young, Easyjet was the perfect place for me to begin as the age gradient isn't as pronounced compared to many legacy carriers. 
Where did you do your IR/CPL then?  
It's why I went integrated, particularly with CTC the holdpool. Like many of us who go integrated the family home goes on the line, and I was no different so the 'guarantee' drew me there. In saying that, FTE guys now seem to be streaming to Easyjet.

martinsvi

I'm doing my CPL/ME/IR with Global Aviation SA in Greece at the moment. I chose Wings Alliance associated schools, they also do a form of placement with some of the airlines and I passed their selection for their APC, so will see..

beauf

martinsvi wrote: »

....You're talking about the investment and payback.. I think this is an incorrect mindset. You have to love to fly. When you set out to do your training it is pretty much a gamble.....

While I broadly agree with the sentiment, there still a lot of not fun things about flying, the company politics, unions, health scares etc. That said I would prefer my office to be over the alps rather than the end of the same commute every day.

martinsvi

beauf wrote: »

While I broadly agree with the sentiment, there still a lot of not fun things about flying, the company politics, unions, health scares etc. That said I would prefer my office to be over the alps rather than the end of the same commute every day.

that's why you have to love it to go through with it.. if you only do this because of the pay, perceived glamour or because you're curious, I don't see how you're going to last long..

Sullysark

martinsvi wrote: »

I'm doing my CPL/ME/IR with Global Aviation SA in Greece at the moment. I chose Wings Alliance associated schools, they also do a form of placement with some of the airlines and I passed their selection for their APC, so will see..

Is that on the DA42 or Piper?
I've friends who went to the modular route who went modular through that group and are all at airlines! Flying in Greece certainly beats Bournemouth in late Winter! 
Health scares? Find an AME who is over 65, thats the trick
Guys I know who changed careers to be a pilot for financial gain, didn't make their first Solo when it came to flying. As they'd no love for it, they just wanted a jet getting supplied with the tasteless coffee served on board.

beauf

I was surprised how many commercial pilots I've met who are not interested in flying. Though obviously many are and have a club back ground.

I ended up in IT. I'm amazed how many in IT don't like computers. Same in any career.

Sullysark

beauf wrote: »

I was surprised how many commercial pilots I've met who are not interested in flying. Though obviously many are and have a club back ground.

I ended up in IT. I'm amazed how many in IT don't like computers. Same in any career.

Wait till you meet the plane anoraks. Oh boy.

beauf

Sullysark wrote: »

Wait till you meet the plane anoraks. Oh boy.

I'm familiar with the rivet counters...

martinsvi

Sullysark wrote: »

Is that on the DA42 or Piper?

PA28 and PA44

beauf wrote: »

I was surprised how many commercial pilots I've met who are not interested in flying. Though obviously many are and have a club back ground.

I ended up in IT. I'm amazed how many in IT don't like computers. Same in any career.

yep, I started programming when I was 14, visual basic, PHP and the stuff.. that was more than 15 years ago, couldn't afford flying, IT was the obvious choice. Then just around the big crash, or maybe slightly after I noticed government and universities promoting IT as an industry that offers unconditional job security and pay. Yes, it was true, we needed people, but not just anyone.. I remember when we hired a guy who just finished a 4 year degree - he worked with us for about 3-4 months until one fine day he just said programming isn't what it thought it would be, left on the spot and joined acting classes.. we thought it was a once off odd ball but the stream of unemployables just kept coming.

I could write a book. Funniest if not the most tragic CV I've ever seen - guy applying for an oracle DBA position with 5 years of experience - his CV was a list of all the fun stuff he has done in Australia. 0 relevance

Then there was a girl who was sitting in facebook all they rejecting any task she was asked to do simply because they didn't teach her how to do in in the uni and she will not read the tutorial because she's not interested in (insert any programming framework you know here)..

and then there's the middle management in IT.. ay ay ay.. be in the organization long enough, kiss a bit of a$$ left and right, don't stand out and your day will come.. I should probably stop here..