Career Change and Getting to 1500

Posted by WanderingLion3235@reddit | flying | View on Reddit | 47 comments

Would love some advice from the reddit mind....(and sorry for the 100,000th similar post) I'm 35m (almost 36) and in a well paying corporate job (Equivalent to low-mid seniority US airline widebody captain) that I have lost the love for. I am fortunate to be able to afford my own plane and can build hours cheaply. With all that said, I am considering making a career change. Assuming I start now, I estimate I would get to a mainline around 42. Though currently single, I would like to have a family one day, so the pay and QOL between now and those early career years are the biggest things holding me back, as well as the 10-12 years it would take for me to get back to my current salary. Currently VFR with about 220 hours. If you were me, would you: 1) Stay in current job and fly the hell out of my own plane evenings and weekends for all ratings except my multi time to get to 1500. I have a glass cockpit and AP so it meets the TAA regs for commercial. Maybe also pick up a CFI to instruct on weekends (but not in my own plane since it's experimental). 2) Get to CFI or CFII in my plane and then find a flight school and instruct full time the rest of the way. I would need to move to a cheaper apartment and/or city for this (LA area based currently), but CFI time is desired by airlines. 3) Do #1 without CFI but only until 750 or 1000, and at which point find a job hauling freight or similar that gives turbine time until 1500. 4) Skip it and do what my hangarmate suggested: just keep flying for fun but with a different corp job.

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47 Comments

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johnisom@reddit

35 and you want a family “some day”? Buckle up and prioritize that or it’s not happening. You wasted 15 years already. At your age you can’t afford to waste more. Of course it’s possible to be a parent and also fly.

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SciencesAndFarts@reddit

If you get to 65 having spent 23 years behind a desk, are you going to consider that a life well lived? I made the jump. I make less than I ever have as an adult at a pretty grueling 135 operator, and I have no regrets. I’m very ready to move into the 121 world, but I couldn’t put a number on what it would take to get me back into a desk. And in year 2 at any of the “big” regionals I’ll be making more than enough for the lifestyle I live. “Flying for fun” will always, always come last. Staying in your job while you train might be viable - I kind of did that - as long as you can fly no less than 2X per week reliably. Go get your first class medical and do a discovery flight. Those are low cost ways to poke at it before deciding to buy a money pit.

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WanderingLion3235@reddit (OP)

Wow, well never expected so many responses, so thank you everyone. So much great insight from all of you. I think you've managed to convince me that #4 is the way to go. I do plan on getting all my ratings, and one day maybe getting typed on a jet for fun/a challenge. As u/Pilot_Indiscretion and others have pointed out, I haven't gotten to where I am by just punching in and punching out, it's been relentless travel, late night/early morning emails and calls, and plenty of hard work. u/redditburner_5000 you make a good point that "being in a box" would be a huge culture shock, especially since I've gotten to where I am partly by getting around the limits at work rather than accepting the answer. Maybe those few days at OSH got to me...LOL

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Picklemerick23@reddit

Be careful mate, grass isn’t always greener.

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Rich-Cucumber-5821@reddit

I’m 42 and making the switch. I know I’ll likely spend the rest of my career commuting and will likely just get a small apartment wherever I am based to use while there.

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SRM_Thornfoot@reddit

Keep your current job, It pays the bills. Get your CFII/MEI ratings, that will be both fun and make you a better pilot. Even if you don't use them (much) it will still look good on a resume. Then fly your own plane and quickly get to the 1500TT. At that point you have burned no bridges and you have the option to stay at your current job, get a different corp job, or get an airline job. good luck!

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AceofdaBase@reddit

Keep your current job and buy a small jet. Make it a club to defer the costs. Time build and jet time. Also volunteer work angel flight for tax write offs

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theeyeholeman1@reddit

I have had an extremely lucky career and am currently a Widebody FO making around $350k/yr. If I could make similar money in a less volatile industry that did not require me to travel I would absolutely be doing that and flying for fun on the weekends. Career progression in the aviation industry is like 90% luck and can swing wildly the opposite direction at any time.

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SamArch0347@reddit

Yeah, but you can't fly a 500,000 lbs jet for fun on the weekends.

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therobbstory@reddit

No, but you can fly a Champ on the weekends which is inarguably more enjoyable than the 450,000lb jet.

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Dependent-Place-4795@reddit

A plane just becomes a plane after a while

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theeyeholeman1@reddit

It's fun, but I wouldn't give up a well paying job I currently had just to be able to do it. Like almost anything else, the novelty wears off after a while.

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Pilot_Indiscretion@reddit

As someone who has worked both fields, you’re not making 350k a year in ANY other job without a significant QoL hit. That cash is on-call 24/7, like on the phone during your kid’s baseball games. And you’re traveling (and that’s work travel which means work all day and emails until 10pm) And that’s assuming you have some sort of software, engineering or highly specialized Masters Degree. I’ll also be the meanie and point out that a lot of pilots think “yea I’d rather go something else if I could”, but most are too dumb and/or lazy to make that kind of money outside of flying. They’re absolutely delusional about the corporate world. Most would struggle finding a job over 80-100k at best. That’s why pilots panic during furloughs, because most are qualified to sell insurance, and that’s about it. We make money pushing buttons. Enjoy it, you ain’t getting that anywhere else. For anyone on the outside, this job is easy. Live in base, shut your mouth, and punch in/out. Go buy a boat.

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theeyeholeman1@reddit

Oh, I absolutely recognize that I can't make that kind of money anywhere else. But if OP is currently making similar money as they claim, I don't think I'd give that up for the chance of POSSIBLY making it back to that one day - particularly when making it back there is almost entirely based on luck.

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chasepsu@reddit

I was in a very similar boat as OP last year, making mainline captain money at 35 in a job that required being on the road 4 days and working 60-70+ hours a week, in a field I didn't enjoy for a company that demanded far more from me than I wanted to give them. I chose to walk away from it and go full-time to flight training and try to get to the airlines. (Yes, I am aware that the airlines will require a lot of the above, but the key difference is I'm actually interested in aviation, the travel never bothered me.) I am extremely fortunate that I have a significant other who is supportive of my decision and who is well-compensated enough to allow us to maintain our current lifestyle (no kids and no plan for them, reasonably affordable rent, 13 year old car, etc.) even with my training expenses which I'd saved up for and set aside before walking away, but i know that I'm in an exceedingly rare position.

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ThatLooksRight@reddit

Absolutely concur.

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BrtFrkwr@reddit

With the industry in a downswing, you will likely not upgrade until about age 55 or 60.

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BlackberryStarship@reddit

I'm in a somewhat similar boat as the OP, weighing the choice to drop everything and tackle flight training at age 34. When the industry turns again, are those times not going to improve? I figured even if it takes me 10 years to reach a major, I'd still have about a 20-year career ahead of me, but is that an unrealistic target to be aiming for? Either way, I'm going to be calling up a few local schools and looking into booking discovery flights pretty soon! I initially wanted to take helicopter lessons, but that industry seems even more dire than the airlines, haha.

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No_Pollution2292@reddit

20 years till he upgrades at a regional? Come on dude

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BrtFrkwr@reddit

He's talking about working for a major.

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Wonderful_Loquat_198@reddit

There's no guarantee he even makes it to a major. It's not an entitlement.

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BrtFrkwr@reddit

At his age, this is a truth he will learn.

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MaximumGlad2125@reddit

Some people just love aviation, it’s a huge risk to ditch the career behind and do pilot. I’ve instructed a student who did and eventually went back to his good career. I recommend 1 or 4

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redditburner_5000@reddit

I've said this here before, but it bears repeating... All "high earners" I know who have left their careers for flying have gone back to high earning. I can speculate as to the reasons, but that's one guy's observation. I'd say option 4 is the way to go. If you can make a lot of money **not** flying, why trade that for a volatile career in which progression is 0% merit and 100% seniority? 1,500 is the legal minimum. Competitive mins are likely going to be higher.

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Diamondinthetough@reddit

What’s your speculation? I’m thinking professional flying (forced to fly) is completely different from hobby flying

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redditburner_5000@reddit

The "Type A" mindset drives high-earners to throw themselves into their work. This requires an intellectual engagement that is far beyond what "normal" people are willing to commit to their work. You don't become a top-tier attorney by showing up 9-5 and just doing "good work." You don't become a top surgeon by just sort of liking the job. You live it day in and day out. You don't become a mid- to senior-level corporate manager by just doing the work you're given. You work like a dog. And the output of all of these people is worth the effort. But it's hard-earned. Nobody just sort of ends up making $250k/yr because they got lucky. So, taking a hard grinding worker and transplanting them into a job that punishes anything beyond strict, perfect adherence to super well-defined and strictly limited set of rules is a huuuuuge culture shift. The Type-As who end up earning a lot of money by being aggressive and relentless and unstoppable problem solvers all of a sudden find themselves in a little box bounded by unbreakable procedures. If you break the procedures, you get fired or killed. I think this becomes very boring very quickly to people who have spent their entire careers doing the opposite of everything a good commercial pilot must do to be successful. And the "stay within the box, perfectly, every time" skill is a legitimate skill, too. That's why it is rewarded so well. Not everyone can spend 35 - 45 years doing the same thing over and over, without fail. We've all pretty much settled on the fact that strict routine and training is the safest way to operate planes with hundreds of people on board. Short of AI integration, it's not getting much safer. So, I think that the "high earners" just get bored with it. Once you do it for a few years, you've done it. The next \~30yrs won't be much different from the first five in terms of job role. Commercial flying is designed to be boring. Independent thinking or "thinking outside the box" is discouraged. The box is safe. Don't leave the box. The job is to do *this* procedure every single time, in *this* exact way, at *this* triggering threshold. And then do the next one. And then the next one. Over. And. Over. Again. That was my experience. I do like flying a lot. I do not like flying professionally. I want to fly on my schedule, with my people, in my plane, where I want to go. I don't want to be told to arrive at 2:45am in a blizzard to fly somewhere on someone else's say-so.

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Why-R-People-So-Dumb@reddit

I had not previously speculated this but if I were to take a guess at it, there is a big difference between dispatched type work and mid level management type work. Even within a corporate environment where I took no pay cut it drove me nuts when I moved departments and had such little influence over my day to day and perceived authority comparatively to a different area of that company where I just did what the powers that be said. Then on top of it your home routine is very different. Corporate management level jobs involve a pretty much constant engagement from some part of your brain at some level from when you wake up to when you go to sleep. Dispatch type work involves working hard at a task and then checking out when you are done, finding other ways to keep your brain engaged. Not saying one works harder than the other it's just the change of periods of intense focus vs spreading your work out throughout longer periods. Finally I'd say the culture is entirely different which is probably a product of all of the above as well. The gray collar vs white collar differences. This probably contributes to a lot of the issues between time builder CFIs and people in their 40s/50s getting their PPL for fun or work.

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jrf1234@reddit

That’s part of it… I wouldn’t call it “forced to fly”, I love my job and lots of career pilots do. But being obligated to fly and all it comes with—being away from home, climbing the seniority ladder, all things you don’t deal with if you stick with the current gig and buy a 172. It’s going to take a lot of time and effort to get to a place where you’re making anything close to mid-seniority widebody captain. Not saying it isn’t worth it, but are you willing to deal with potentially 10-15 years to get to that point?

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FlyingBaconDreams@reddit

Nothing cheap about owning your own plane but send it.

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CarminSanDiego@reddit

I’m a pilot. I would gladly trade jobs (assuming you work bankers hours with all holidays weekends off)

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Fatturtle18@reddit

I’m doing #4. I’ve had the same thoughts as you, but I’m older, currently 40. I make more now than I would at the end of a 25 year airline career. I hate my job most days. But I have a plane and I love to fly, be at airports and just anything aviation. Working on my cpl, will get CFI as well. I use my job to fund aviation. Probably will have enough saved to sell my business in 10 years. Then just fly and CFI for fun.

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MachineSpecialist764@reddit

I am 40+ and considering option 4 as well. Currently training for ifr and will do cpl later. While I would love to be a professional pilot, but the pay cut is huge. I may change my mind when the industry is back and kids are older. But flying for fun is major part for me. Build hour is the side thing

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hanjaseightfive@reddit

After month 5 of commuting west coast to east coast to sit short-call reserve out of a crash pad… knowing that you’ll get to do that again when you upgrade to regional captain.. …and again when you upgrade from regional captain to mainline FO… and again when you upgrade to mainline CA.. You might lose your love for this career as well. Commuting to junior reserve and living jn a crashpad sucks when you’re 25. It REAAAALLLLY SUCKS when you’re 45+. I’m not saying that’s how your airline career will go, I’m just saying this industry has some serious downsides and the grass isn’t always greener.

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bottomfeeder52@reddit

why not just move at that point if you’re going to be east coast for all 3 of those jumps

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ThatLooksRight@reddit

This answer.

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NiceAustinPerson@reddit

I am 35 and burnt out in a $200k job. Had a recent spell where I convinced myself I had to dedicate everything to becoming a professional pilot because I'm so miserable. After a few days to breathe and work through some feelings, it occurred to me that I probably just work for a toxic employer and should look elsewhere in the same industry for similar pay. This would provide more stable employment with a developed skillset and a steady cash flow to fund aviation as a hobby. So IMO 4. You could also save as much as possible in the meantime to use as supplemental income if you switch to CFI full time in the future.

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Joe-from-daBronx@reddit

I made the switch at 47 and I’m 51 now and a full time CFI at RATP mins making peanuts. My previous career I was making 3 yr FO narrowbody pay for a legacy. The financial struggle is real and I have thought of going back but I am sticking out hoping I get that call soon. Your timeline is unrealistic IMO. If you don’t mind taking a huge pay cut and do CFI well past 1500 for the pure love for flying and teaching others, then go for #2. But stretch that timeline out a bit. Don’t think mainline, just think Cessna 172 in the summer with a kid who keeps touching the mixture instead of the throttle when you say reduce power. To be fair if I made a living wage as a CFI I’d still pick it over my previous career.

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duece12345@reddit

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ThatLooksRight@reddit

Jesus, just do the Coastfire thing. Work for like 10 years (or whatever) and then coast. Everyone gets sick of their job at some point. Do you REALLY want to start over making peanuts, being away from your (eventual) family, eating out at the same hotels, hitting multiple time zones per trip, etc, just because your work is boring? Find fulfillment somewhere other than work and enjoy being a 1%er.

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InvestorOrSpeculator@reddit

Fly for fun and focus on improving your social life outside of work. Don’t look to your work for love, it’s a trap. If you do get married and have a family, you’ll want a higher paid, easy (even if boring) job like you describe your job now. If you want to get married now is the time to look rather than spending all your time trying to change careers. It would be very difficult to have a child and no money when it doesn’t have to be that way. I’m not a pilot but am 49 with two kids so more time along life’s journey. Also choose your spouse carefully as a difficult marriage or divorce is very tough. Consider marrying another high earner from your work and then you can switch into aviation later after your future kids are older. I didn’t prioritize partner’s income when dating but looking back more money makes life easier. Not the most important characteristic in your spouse, but family life is expensive to a degree hard to understand when you are single and easier if it’s not just you earning the money.

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indecision_killingme@reddit

#4 dude! Live through the suck at work and then fly for fun on the weekends. Maybe add ratings to challenge yourself.

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Pilot-Imperialis@reddit

If you’re wanting to join the airlines you’ll need to take the pay cut once you get CFI and start instructing. With the way the industry is now, multiple airlines have stopped recognizing “pleasure flying” as a way to build time and only recognize the hours gained in a professional setting.

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theoriginalturk@reddit

If he gets his CFI he could log tons of dual given as an independent CFI in his own aircraft and check the “professional pt91” flying box

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jet-setting@reddit

> Assuming I start now, I estimate I would get to a mainline around 42. Well first off, be careful there. Nothing is guaranteed and everything depends on the hiring environment and how competitive you are within that market. 7 years isn’t impossible, but right now that would be a stretch. It is just as likely that you may wait 7 years before even being offered a spot at a regional. Also, you should know that 1500 is not a magic number. It’s simply the minimum to be eligible to hold an Airline Transport pilot certificate. Right now 1500 is not very competitive for hiring at the regionals.

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Screw_2FA@reddit

Keep the job and do all your training on the side including multi and CFI. Save as much as possible in the interim. Begin instructing part time and once you think you can carry a full load of students, then and only then if you are still as passionate about it, switch to instructing full time and use everything you’ve saved to survive instructing and first two years at a regional/135.

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Slight-Check-6718@reddit

2. 1 won't get you hired in this environment and 3 isn't realistic. I'd do 4 if I was making like >250k at my corp job.

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rFlyingTower@reddit

This is a copy of the original post body for posterity: --- Would love some advice from the reddit mind....(and sorry for the 100,000th similar post) I'm 35m (almost 36) and in a well paying corporate job (Equivalent to low-mid seniority US airline widebody captain) that I have lost the love for. I am fortunate to be able to afford my own plane and can build hours cheaply. With all that said, I am considering making a career change. Assuming I start now, I estimate I would get to a mainline around 42. Though currently single, I would like to have a family one day, so the pay and QOL between now and those early career years are the biggest things holding me back, as well as the 10-12 years it would take for me to get back to my current salary. Currently VFR with about 220 hours. If you were me, would you: 1) Stay in current job and fly the hell out of my own plane evenings and weekends for all ratings except my multi time to get to 1500. I have a glass cockpit and AP so it meets the TAA regs for commercial. Maybe also pick up a CFI to instruct on weekends (but not in my own plane since it's experimental). 2) Get to CFI or CFII in my plane and then find a flight school and instruct full time the rest of the way. I would need to move to a cheaper apartment and/or city for this (LA area based currently), but CFI time is desired by airlines. 3) Do #1 without CFI but only until 750 or 1000, and at which point find a job hauling freight or similar that gives turbine time until 1500. 4) Skip it and do what my hangarmate suggested: just keep flying for fun but with a different corp job. --- Please downvote this comment until it collapses. Questions about this comment? [Please see this wiki post before contacting the mods](https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/wiki/index/rflyingtower/). --- I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. If you have any questions, please [contact the mods of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/flying).