Mon Jun 03, 2019 9:00 am
#1697535
I wasn’t sure whether this wanted to be in General Aviation or Student Pilots, if it is in the wrong place mods please move
This question is purely hypothetical as I don’t have the finances to take either route at the moment, however, hear me out. I currently have 160 hours fixed wing time, nearly 70 of those happily spent bumbling around in the Slingsby T67M Firefly that I am a shareholder of. I have been thinking for a while now about a change in career as I am stagnating at work as the opportunities for progression are minimal, we have lost several good engineers to other sites and some have left the company because of this.
As I said I have been thinking about a career change and commercial aviation seems as good a way as any to do that so I have been thinking about a couple of routes to go down, the first, Route 1 is the most obvious; continue flying fixed wing and build up my hours, do my Aerobatics sign off as planned and do my IR(R) with a school that will enable it to be used as part of the competency based route to a IR and of course get that 300nm cross country in. Then do the ATPL TK exams (seems a sensible route to go down rather than doing the CPL and IR TK exams separate), then do the CPL and full IR.
Route 2 is to start from scratch and go for a CPL(H), this route is hideously expensive, it’s from scratch so nothing really to expand on with this route.
All ATPL exams in both cases would be distance learning. Having reviewed the requirements I see no reason why I can’t get a class 1 medical (though I would get one before forking out for any CPL oriented training).
Now for a moment imagine that I have all the money I need sat in my bank account ready to hand over to an appropriate flying school for either route the million dollar question is which route will have the better job prospects?
Bear in mind that I have no interest in flying big jets at all, I’d be looking at wanting to fly smaller twins (say up to Islander size) or preferably single turbines (e.g. PC-12’s, C208’s). I have no real preference with helicopters, though I appreciate some roles (e.g. SAR) may likely prefer ex-military pilots. I guess the which route has the better chance of finding a job. Or genuinely am I better off stagnating for the next 30 years to retirement in my current job and just carry on flying on a weekend for fun.
This question is purely hypothetical as I don’t have the finances to take either route at the moment, however, hear me out. I currently have 160 hours fixed wing time, nearly 70 of those happily spent bumbling around in the Slingsby T67M Firefly that I am a shareholder of. I have been thinking for a while now about a change in career as I am stagnating at work as the opportunities for progression are minimal, we have lost several good engineers to other sites and some have left the company because of this.
As I said I have been thinking about a career change and commercial aviation seems as good a way as any to do that so I have been thinking about a couple of routes to go down, the first, Route 1 is the most obvious; continue flying fixed wing and build up my hours, do my Aerobatics sign off as planned and do my IR(R) with a school that will enable it to be used as part of the competency based route to a IR and of course get that 300nm cross country in. Then do the ATPL TK exams (seems a sensible route to go down rather than doing the CPL and IR TK exams separate), then do the CPL and full IR.
Route 2 is to start from scratch and go for a CPL(H), this route is hideously expensive, it’s from scratch so nothing really to expand on with this route.
All ATPL exams in both cases would be distance learning. Having reviewed the requirements I see no reason why I can’t get a class 1 medical (though I would get one before forking out for any CPL oriented training).
Now for a moment imagine that I have all the money I need sat in my bank account ready to hand over to an appropriate flying school for either route the million dollar question is which route will have the better job prospects?
Bear in mind that I have no interest in flying big jets at all, I’d be looking at wanting to fly smaller twins (say up to Islander size) or preferably single turbines (e.g. PC-12’s, C208’s). I have no real preference with helicopters, though I appreciate some roles (e.g. SAR) may likely prefer ex-military pilots. I guess the which route has the better chance of finding a job. Or genuinely am I better off stagnating for the next 30 years to retirement in my current job and just carry on flying on a weekend for fun.
Last edited by Melanie Moxon on Mon Jun 03, 2019 10:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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