Training as a pilot in Oz at 30

ChikiChiki

I am a 30 year old who relocated to Australia at the beginning of the year. I have always had an interest in aviation and a burning desire to train to be a commercial pilot and have some experience as below.

I went to Florida in 2011 at the age of 24 to train for the PPL and logged just over 30 hours in flying including solo. At the time I worked in the bank with no educational background other than the Leaving Certificate and was able to secure finance to fund the PPL lessons. However, I now realise that this was a mistake as the burden of debt and an unstable job at home due to the recession made it a bad time to do the lessons. My fall back options were not that great. My parents offered to remortgage the house and I flat out refused which was probably the wisest decision I made. All in all it was just bad planning and I decided to give it up as the financial requirements were tough at the time.

Fast forward 6 years and having just turned 30 the desire has not gone away. Since 2011 I have completed a BA honours degree on a PT basis, various professional certifications and worked my way into quite lucrative consultancy roles gaining valuable experience working in a multitude of financial institutions along the way. I feel that if I commence pilot training my fall back options are much stronger than before. My savings in Australia are steadily increasing all the time and I think if I commence shortly and went the modular route I could complete training by 33/34.

My plan would be to work full time in Melbourne whilst completing the training on weekends and holidays. The only major concern I have is my age at 30, would this be a negative for finding a job when ready to go commercial at 33/34? Im thinking that I do the Class 1 medical and just do the PPL anyway and work it from there.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

LeChienMefiant

What's the cost in Australia versus other locations? South east Asia, China or new Zealand for example. Australia is a high cost economy. Pilot training is not cheap.

James 007

My name is Michael O'Leary. I am CEO of a small company called Ryanair, when are you willing to start, there are some terms and conditions, but no sneaky ones.:D

pepe the prawn

Careful with training in Australia, whatever licences you gain over there might not be acceptable here in Ireland or Europe unless you do some conversions, which may or may not include re sitting all 14 ATPL exams and also converting all of your ratings, ie PPL, CPL, MEP, MEIR...

What you want at the end of your training if you want a commercial job in Europe is an EASA licence, which to my knowledge you wont be able to get in Australia, so look into all of that with a fine tooth comb. There are now schools in the USA who train you under EASA regulations, which means at the end of your training you'll have an EASA licence, so maybe look into that and see if similar is available somewhere in Australia.

adam88

Fair play to you OP. IM 29 and wanted to be a pilot since I was a child. Unfortunately didn't have the funds when I was younger. Now I have the funds but I'm in a job that in quite happy in. Personally I'm not willing to take the gamble but fair play to yourself for doing so

martinsvi

if you finish training in Australia you will get a CASA licence, which is not valid outside Australia. For Europe you need EASA licence, US is FAA etc. As pepe suggested, if working in another region you will need to convert it. Here's what you need to consider - 1st things 1st - what is your legal situation in Australia? Do you have Australian citizenship, if not on what basis are you there? As you can probably guess - I'm hinting that if your permit/visa situation allows you to do one type of job, it may or may not allow you to do something else, like being a pilot.

This can then determine if you have any chance working for Australian airlines or not. If you can't/don't want to work for Australian airlines, it would make much more sense to save a bit of money, take a bit of time off work and go get them in one/two/three tries in the region where you will want/be legally able to fly. Another thing to consider - there's nothing stopping you getting your CASA PPL in Australia, do your hourbuilding there and go finish EASA ATPLs/CPL/ME-IR in Europe on the basis of your foreign "ICAO" license.

so really there's a lot of IFs and BUTs here, if you could answer some of these questions, we could try to be a bit more helpful

..but having re-read your question, it seems that you are concerned about your age more than anything else. I'm 30 and I'm about to finish my CPL/ME/IR, you would be surprised how many 40+ year olds I have met on the modular routes.. no 34 is not too old, it's all about where the industry is at that time when you finish. Right now, we seem to be in a very positive hiring situation where most guys get jobs no matter what their age is. We don't know what the story will be in 4 years. When I started my training about 3 years back, the industry was absolutely dead, nobody was hiring. The best piece of advice I ever got is - if you get your licence at least you have a chance. If you have no licence, you will have 0 chance and will spend the rest of your days wondering.

Irish Steve

It's been said on just about every thread about commercial flying, before you do anything else, make sure that you can pass a Class 1 medical. The fact that you have passed a Class 2 does NOT mean that you will meet the significantly higher requirements for a Class 1, and without that, there's no point in doing anything else.

Stovepipe

Steve is right; save yourself a lot of grief and do the Class 1 now, instead of finding out later that you might have an underlying issue that prevents you from getting a CPL.