I'm considering flying

Yeah not aimed at your comment. Was at the "DPE says 9 years to ATP" comment.

It also depends upon your definition of marketable. In this case, I believe his definition of "ATP marketable" was zero time to right seat non-regional 121 FO.
However, that said, a lot of variables. Sometimes the stars align and you end up beating the averages, throw in a bankruptcy, sour job market, etc. and life, then your entry level gig becomes a career.
 
If you're starting from scratch, I would strongly recommend that you look at doing something more lucrative with the skills that you have already developed. If you are interested in flying, you can do it as a hobby on the weekend. You're looking at many tens of thousands of dollars worth of training to land even the lowest of aviation jobs, which are much better suited to young single folks with no family or ties to any one place. In the beginning you will make very little income, will likely spend a LOT of time away from home, work very crappy hours, and will have to change where you call home several times in order to make a living.

If you simply have the bug to fly, you can get your private pilot licence for the cost of a used car and actually fly for enjoyment, take your friends up and have fun with it.

You can spend a fortune to learn to fly for a living and make a lot of sacrifices to earn a meager salary in the beginning, or you can do something to make a better living and afford to fly on your own terms. I would recommend the latter at your age since it takes many years of sacrifice to make the real money in aviation. That being said, a wise pilot once told me when I was very young after giving me a very negative speech about aviation, "If I can talk you out of it, you shouldn't become a pilot anyway!"

If this is something you are seriously considering though, you are in the right place.
 
With the exception of the all the rugrats, you and I are living strikingly parallel lives....
You could always go for the ozziecat35 plan. Loan, PPL/Instrument > run out of money > housing bust > Post 9-11 GI Bill 5 years later for CMEL/CSEL > first flying job only part time a grand total of 8 years after my first lesson > sitting at 600 hours...averaging 300/year.
 
I'm 43 years old and have always wanted to fly. Sadly, I have spent most of my working years in the business world. I lost my job at a .com three years ago and have run out of money. I had been living off of my 401K. Does anyone know how someone in my position could get financial aid to learn to fly.

The financing available for flight training is pretty expensive, and the training is pretty expensive, too. Best case you will have 20 years working to amortize that over.

Flying jobs, also, are not always hiring. Many of them are right now, but it is a feast or famine type of business. Very often, nearly no one is hiring, often for long stretches of time.

If you are broke now, there are even more ways to be more broke flying, especially early on. Job in the tech/.com/biz world are quite plentiful now, on the other hand.
 
You could always go for the ozziecat35 plan. Loan, PPL/Instrument > run out of money > housing bust > Post 9-11 GI Bill 5 years later for CMEL/CSEL > first flying job only part time a grand total of 8 years after my first lesson > sitting at 600 hours...averaging 300/year.

I'm 260-ish TT and about to have the CSEL. Can't decide if doing a CMEL add-on is worthwhile vs. getting CFI.

What I really want to do now that it's warming up is ditch the study materials and go do some tailwheel and acrobatic flying. Just go turn some 100LL into noise at crazy angles for the sheer fun of it. Then back to the books....
 
If you plan on going airlines / etc, then obviously a cmel is required to play. If you plan on aviation scratching an itch and no more, a CFI ticket might be a better option for spare time stuff...regardless, making noise and burning Dino-juice is always acceptable!
 
killbilly said:
So I'm gonna be 42 at the end of the month. I am not telling you that you cannot do this - you absolutely can, and guys considerably older than both of us have done so.
Like me? I was only at about 300 hrs at your age and proud be be hired at a 121 at 50. I had a easy boss that bought a plane for the company so I got to fly it, but allowed me to use my degree to make money and get to built the logbook. Check out the local airplanes and run the N number and see what business own them. Contact them directly and see if they need a part 91 pilot (you are a employee of their company). Good Luck and keep us posted. Here to answer any questions you have.
 
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ozziecat35 said:
You could always go for the ozziecat35 plan. Loan, PPL/Instrument > run out of money > housing bust > Post 9-11 GI Bill 5 years later for CMEL/CSEL > first flying job only part time a grand total of 8 years after my first lesson > sitting at 600 hours...averaging 300/year.
I hear a member here has a mooney for sale ...
 
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