Good evening everyone my name is Willie and I am 62 yrs old and was thinking about entering into the aviation field as a pilot, But my concerns as an older person and hearing that the FAA has mandated a mandatory retirement age of 65, is it worth me even pursuing this a career with all the outlandish cost for the training.
This has always been a passion and a lifelong dream to do but I do not want to waste my time if any of you could shed some insight on this for me it will be greatly appreciated,
Also, does this age requirement pertain to cargo, charter, and corporate?
The vast majority of the time we say most people aren’t too old as long as they’re relalistic about their expectations. That said if you started today, by the time you were done training and built the required time of 1500hrs needed to get any job above the entry level instructor type positions you’d be looking at being 64-65 so the airlines are definitely out.
No the age 65 limit doesn’t apply to cargo or charter/corporate gigs but you’d be competing against other 65yo who retired from the airlines and have decades and tens of thousands of hours experience.
Long/short if this is something you think you’d enjoy and want to do as a light retirement type job then by all means but you will never really get a return on your investment at this point.
I do not see this being a viable option for you. It would take two years before you could go to the airlines, so that route is out. Charter and corporate flying does not have the same age limitations, but as Adam mentioned, you would be competing against retired airline pilots with thousands of hours of flight time. It is of course your call, but at this point my recommendation would be to get your private license and just enjoy flying.