Donald Intro and Questions

[DonaldG-MA-109]

Hi Adam, I have been very interested in flying for several years, and have 8 hours towards my private. My thought was to get my licence just for fun, but I started thinking about a career change. I'm 40 years old and was thinking I might be nuts to believe I could get a position with an airline. This apparently is not the case. Through research, I have found ATP who would become my new school if I was to take that next step. Do I take that next step????? I know this really a question for me, but your thoughts would be appreciated.

I had read that most of the larger carriers also want their pilots to have a four year degree. Is this really true?

Lastly, 150 days seems to be very fast. I feel comfortable with the flying part, but there must be an amazing amount of studying to do also. How did you feel about the time frame? Was there enough time in the day?

Thank You for your time,
Don

[ExpressJet Adam]

Hey Don and welcome,

I moved your post to a new thread so you can get the attention you deserve. My thoughts are, THAT'S WHY I'M HERE! I was in the same boat a few years back (ok, I was 39, but I was looking at 40). But I was pretty successful, not very happy and always wanted to fly. Honestly I figured if I could keep doing what I was doing and maybe get a side gig flight instructing, that would be cool. But I started hearing all this stuff about how I wasn't too old, the Regionals actually like older pilots, bla bla bla, I started thinking OK, maybe, but I really didn't get too excited. Then I really started talking to people and found out that this was not only possible, but pretty do-able. So here I am living the dream. So what do I think? I think there truly is NOTHING better in this life than making a living doing something you love. There is no better feeling than looking forward to going to work in the morning.

True, most Majors do require a 4 yr degree (I'm assuming since you're asking you don't have one?). First question is, you're 40, are you planning on going to a Major? Years back that was the natural progression of things and if you were the "old guy" at a Regional, everyone kinda looked at you funny and assumed you screwed up somewhere and were "stuck". Well times have changed and the lines have gotten somewhat blurry. First issue was pay, well pay at Regionals has gone up some while Majors have gone down (the days of the senior Delta Capt making $300K has gone the way of the dodo). Most Capt's at Majors are topping out at $150K, while at the Regionals you'll get to $100K (not bad). Also the definition of a Regional has changed. Years back flying at a Regional meant flying a prop from BOS-BUF, back and forth 8 times a day. Well at ExpressJet we fly as far north as St John's Newfoundland, south as Mexico City, Portland MN to Portland OR (with some stops along the way). Mitch is over at compass flying a 100 seat Embraer which is almost the same size as a small 737 or Airbus. Bottomline is do you need to work your way up the ranks of a Regional (say 3yrs as an FO, 2 as a Capt), to go back to the bottom of the list, take a 50% paycut, give up your quality of life, just so you can say you fly a 777 from JFK to Tokyo? Answer? Maybe. I can tell you if I were 23, I'd probably say yes, what the hell, I have 40+ years left in my career, I want to do it all, but at 40, with 25 yrs left? From my perspective, I'm really fat, dumb and happy where I am. Again, the decision is yours. Good news is if you do in fact want to fly the heavy iron, there are many good online degree program (no the Majors have no problem with an online degree as long as it's not from Bob's College and Taco's). If you think you could be happy living the same dream as me, you're good to go.

150 days is very fast, you won't believe how fast till you're doing it. Don, this is one of my favorite questions. As I said, I was right where you are (except I had my PPL, got it 18 yrs ago, lots of rust on it) and was looking at the 90 ACPP, and thought 90 days? No way. In fact if you talk to some people at other schools they'll point that out and ask you as a perspective student, do you really think you can get a "quality" education in 150 days, AND what will that airline you want to work for say? Well, I can say with absolute certainty, that airline will say you're our kind of guy. Yes Don, 150 days is short and yes it takes a lot of studying, hard work and dedication. Question is, if you don't think you can handle learning how to fly a Seminole and a 172 in 150 days, what makes you believe you'll be able to learn to fly a JET, going 600mph, with 50+ passengers in some of the busiest airspaces on the planet in 45 days? Do you think ExpressJet Airlines asked me how much time I think I needed to get trained as a new hire? That my friend is the point of the 150 days. ATP makes this very clear in there advertising, "we train airline pilots". And the accelerated training is no more accelerated than that at any Regional in the world. Not trying to be harsh, but if you can't get through the ATP training in 150 days, you probably wouldn't be able to become an FO in 45 (or less). The fact is, not everyone with $60K can or should be an airline pilot.

There's a line in the movie a League of their Own (I know, nothing to do with aviation, but still, it fits). Someone says something about it being soooo hard, Tom Hanks replies "It's supposed to be hard, if it wasn't hard, everyone would do it, it's the hard...that makes it great".


Adam