I know you had this question several times but in my case it’s a little bit different, or maybe not .
Long story short I always wanted to be a pilot, at age 15 my parents took me to a local flight academy but unfortunately found out that we couldn’t afford it.
So I took other paths and studied IT which led me into a career path which I still enjoy. I love what I do and to be honest I never looked back at my Aviation dreams.
That was until a few months ago.
Today, 20 year’s later from that visit at the flight academy, I started working for a business jet chartering company .
I am working within the IT department, and I am quite happy to be honest. But lately being in the Aviation environment on a daily basis my childhood dreams are starting to resurface.
I managed to save some money over the years and I believe I can go for it. I have absolutely no experience and I would need to start from zero, but that doesn’t scare me.
If you had to ask me where do you want to see yourself in 5 - 35 years time I would surely say flying rather than in some cold server room.
My only concern is that since I never looked back into aviation I have zero experience. In these few months since I joined this company I got all exited again and got myself wondering if I am still on time and who knows be one of their pilots.
As you said this question gets asked daily. I honestly can’t comprehend how anyone can seriously entertain not only a career change but a major life change, spending tens of thousands of dollars on training and taking a significant paycut with zero experience? Before you spend another minute pondering what it might be like flying a G-whatever from TEB-ZRH don’t you think maybe perhaps you should head down to your local flight school (or ATP location if there’s one nearby) and take a lesson or intro-flight? It doesn’t matter if you’ve got 500,000 frequent flyer miles until you’ve sat upfront with your hands on the controls of a small single engine aircraft you have no idea if it’s really for you or have any aptitude for it. It’s kind of like getting a job in IT working for the Yankees and deciding you want to play 2nd base having never picked up a ball. You need to go fly!
Thirty five is certainly plenty young enough to be a pilot, take a look in the FAQ section as Adam gives it a good break down of what you can expect from the career at various ages.
I would say that more than anything, you need to go take an introductory flight and see if flying is really the thing for you.