Before we do some basic analysis realize this is a huge lifestyle change and commitment.
The numbers are basically this.
If you want the regular ATP certificate you’ll need 1500 flight hours. (We’ll leave out PIC vs non PIC and minutae for the rough numbers here for simplicity.)
If you paid for 100% of that time and managed to average $100/hr for aircraft and instructors needed throughout the course of the entire 1500 hours, that’d be $150,000.
If you have that much cash available and no job and plenty of free time, no weather, and you can fly every day for slightly over 4 hours, you’ll be done in a year.
Heh. Okay obviously that’s not workable or even close to it for most people. Let’s change it a bit. But that’s the raw numbers. $150,000+ and a year with no lost time on ANY day, seven days a week.
To knock off most of the price tag, you’ll probably instruct. Teaching is by far the most common way to gain additional hours for cheaper or “free”.
Technically you’re also getting paid (debates on how much to charge for ground/flight and any expenses you incur to do it, notwithstanding) to fly.
But how much will you be making? Let’s use round numbers again for ease of math. You’re charging $50/hr and only charging for flight time. You get just under eight hours in the air every week for a total of 400 hours a year.
(This Number was chosen because it is higher than some of the instructors here on this board said they got when instructing full time.)
That’s $20,000/annually.
So let’s do that math. You paid a bit over $25,000 to get to 250+ hours Commercial and CFI ratings.
You then take a job making about $20,000 a year and need to do that for 3.2 years at that pace, minimum, to make 1500 hours.
Can you work in other aviation jobs prior to 1500? Yes. Sure. They can even be decently paid but not stellar.
I’m just using the ATP as the baseline assuming you’re interested in airline flying.
So... you’re now 54, three years of instructing and you’re job hunting.
Your timing IS good but the industry pay is still (and probably always will be) poor.
You’ve managed to live well below poverty line for three years after shelling out $25,000 from your pocket.
Now you get hired by a regional airline.
MOST (and this gets fuzzy but I’ll just plow on) regional airlines claim to pay about $60K for beginning First Officers right now. BUT. And it’s a big but... if you’re coming from any other profession you’ll find their “accounting practices” interesting.
That $60,000 number at MOST regional airlines right now (take with a grain of salt or a pound as you see fit) is a base salary closer to $35,000, a signing bonus that isn’t paid out in full up front but is either a lump after you’ve stayed for a while or a series of chunks over a longer period of time.
And then they count things like the maximum 401K match and paid sick time or PTO as part of that $60,000 “total compensation” number. Some even include what they pay you for their portion of your medical insurance as part of this “You’ll make X dollars!” sales pitch about your first year. Just be aware of this. They have this stuff on their websites.
Compared to most other professions, where these things would be on top of salary offered and considered perks, they sell it to you as part of the number of your “total compensation” package. It’s an “all inclusive” number. Just be aware this is common. If they say $70,000 to start, get the breakdown of that. It’s likely NOT $70,000 pre-tax in your pocket like any other job offer usually would be.
Okay... so you basically got a $10K raise from Instructing, and medical bennies (unlikely you had much of anything as an instructor), and a 401k which you can’t afford to put anything into, to get that match, unless your household has other income besides yours.
Each year as an FO you’ll get a small raise and if the airline is growing you’ll probably be able to upgrade to Captain fairly quickly. Quickly meaning at least a couple of years perhaps three.
And that’s screaming fast in this biz compared to some decades, and common right now with massive hiring going on for various reasons. (I won’t go into it there’s news articles everywhere about it. Search “pilot shortage”.)
Bonuses aren’t guaranteed in any biz. Careful of those. Also upgrades aren’t guaranteed anywhere either and seniority is literally your life after your hired. One bad contract gone astray with a bigger carrier and regionals have and do disappear in a cloud of debt and furloughs. And you get to hit the streets and start over at another airline. Be careful again here.
Choose wisely. Or at least know it has happened in airline history. A lot. Not so much right now during big growth. But it has happened.
This is hard numbers. You can find better and way worse. You can find Commercial flying gigs that aren’t airline pilot jobs. You can really enjoy the hell out of a lot of things including the flying at any Aviation job, if you’re the agreeable sort.
But the money and specifically the low pay, makes this a lifestyle more than a profession. Not that you shouldn’t consider yourself the consummate professional while doing any of it. I mean in terms of comparison to other professions.
In our hypothetical you’re 54-57 and finally Captain upgraded. Probably closer to 54. And it assumes you can drop everything and go blow $25,000 in a year or a little longer.
To get to Commercial minimums so you can then learn to instruct and take that checkride you’d need to fly just under an hour and a half per day for all 365 days of that first year.
So that’s probably a bit blown. Math is tight on that and if flew a LOT you could keep up with that average. You probably don’t have time for a full time job doing that but maybe. If you and your instructor(s) are hard goal focused and both available all the time. And you have that cash ready to go.
Hopefully this helps put the timeline and numbers in a little perspective. You can make it longer than 4-5 years but it’s hard to make it lower without wads and wads of cash.
Got that $150,000 in the bank? Get to the airport and get to flying. Very rare but some people do it that way. Most need a “time builder” job after the first $25,000 spent. Assuming $100/hr.
