Any pilots in here that started in their late 40’s with young kids that successfully completed the program? Have you earned your 1500 and are you doing now what you expected to do at beginning the program?
Rob,
Others may chime in but I started in my late 30’s with small children, a mortgage, car payments and a dog. I’m a Capt for a Major airline and i have far exceeded my expectations of where I thought I would be.
Adam
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Thanks Adam, I’m nearly 20 years older and about to decide whether to begin this journey or not. So with me being closer to the magic retirement age I’m looking to establish some baseline expectations for myself whether it be in the majors, regionals, or corporate. I already had my admissions flight and enjoyed every bit of having the controls, even for just a short time. With the many challenges in my demographic I’m curious to see how people transformed their initial motivation to endurance through the pressures of daily life as well as through the fast track or flex programs.
Rob,
Actually it’s only about 10yrs older and ATP no longer offers the FlexTrack.
As you’re aware mandatory retirement is 65. If you’re 48-49 that means you’ll be over 50 when your start leaving you with less than 15yrs to fly. You’re never going to be a 787 Capt flying to Tokyo for United. You could have a nice career as a Regional pilot but the pay would be limited. There are of course the LCCs (Spirit, Allegiant, etc) who pay pretty well and then there are the Majors where you could eventually maybe make narrow body Capt or widebody FO. That said things are moving very fast these days and you could possibly do better than the above… or worse.
Thing is this industry is fickle and things can and do change, sometimes quickly. Bottomline is if you simply think it would be cool to spend the next years flying a cool jet around the country (or beyond) and aren’t overly concerned with how much you make or who you fly for then there’s no reason not to proceed. If however you’ll be disappointed if you don’t fly a heavy or make X amount of dollars per year you need to think long and hard.
Adam
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