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New
Directions
Changing
Careers at Midlife
Changing
careers. It sounds like an intriguing idea,
and some of the flight school recruiting brochures are so enticing: fly
to exotic places, earn top dollar, operate sophisticated new-generation
airplanes while earning the respect of your family and friends. Certainly,
the stuff of daydreams.
It should
be simple enough to choose an aviation career if you're just starting
out in the job world. But what if you're not a kid any more and you're
well-established with a family and other adult responsibilities? Can you
turn your professional pilot dream into a reality?
If you've
got a passion for flying, no doubt you've considered chucking that desk
job for the lure and romance of the wild blue yonder. Maybe, after years
of thinking about it, you've finally fulfilled your childhood dream of
learning to fly. Now, with your newly minted private pilot certificate
you're wondering just what it would take to make the change from weekend
to full-time pilot?
On the
other hand, perhaps you've had your certificate for some years, flown
occasionally, but never really considered it as a serious option - until
now. Your day job pays the bills, puts food on the table, and is downright
boring. You ask yourself, "Am I crazy to seriously consider a career change
at this late date when I'm almost 35 (or 40 or 45) years old?"
Age isn't
the inhibiting factor that it used to be. Pilots with a real desire to
fly airplanes are finding jobs available as more experienced pilots begin
moving up out of their entry-level positions. Your maturity, educational
background, and "street savvy" will interest a pilot employer as long
as you demonstrate a sincere passion for flying and are willing to do
whatever it takes to make your flying career a reality. Your age and ability
to interact with customers will likely gain you some instant credibility,
often causing employers to assume that you've got more experience than
your logbook actually shows.
Before
we go any further, let's cover one very important issue that you simply
can't ignore - your educational background. More than 82 percent of pilots
hired in 1999 by all airlines - large or small, passenger or cargo - had
a four-year degree in any subject. Pilots with two or three years of college
comprised just 12 percent of the total, while pilots with fewer than two
years were a mere 6 percent of those hired. Simply stated, if you don't
have a degree, start working on one, either in conjunction with your flight
training or as a separate long-term goal. Al-though maturity and flight
experience will net you points as you near the top of the aviation career
ladder, ignoring the educational preferences of employers will cause them
to question your ability to successfully complete their training programs.
If you're
seriously considering the possibility of a pilot career, begin by researching
all of the various training options available. Talk to your pilot friends;
visit the numerous aviation Web sites, including AOPA Online (www.aopa.org
), for information on training options and advice; and check out your
local FBO, as well as any local or national organized flight school programs
that interest you. You've probably been reading those advertisements for
years; now it's time to go ahead and request the information so that you
can actually see for yourself what they're selling and how they propose
to put you in the pilot seat at a commercial airline.
This preliminary
investigation will become a very important part of your career education
and a good investment in your future. Think of this as your own personal
research project and devote serious time to considering each option, whether
it is an accelerated program that crams all of your flying into six intensive
months of training, a two-year college program that leads you to the right
seat at a specific regional airline, or a local FBO that offers all the
ratings you seek with no particular structure, save that which you design
to fit your personal needs.
Talk with
other pilots from your age group who have attended your target schools.
Be sure to solicit some input from current attendees as well as those
who dropped out if you can get the company or school to come up with some
of these names. (A very good test, in my opinion, of a school's legitimacy
and honest business practices.) When you question pilots, ask them what
they liked and disliked about their training, how they came to choose
that specific company, and whether they would do anything differently
if they had to do it all over again. Another very important question is
how their estimated costs compared with what they actually spent on each
particular rating or certificate.
Once you've
completed your training survey, take some time to make a quick passion
check to see where you fall on the "flying fanatic scale." This is not
as far-fetched as it may sound. After you have some idea of the dollars
you're likely to invest, or at least some minimums, ask yourself whether
your passion for flying has subsided. Are the sacrifices really going
to be worth the long hours and meager initial monetary return?
Start with
the "flight academy" training alternative. Imagine yourself away from
home and family for four to six months and see how you and your pocketbook
will feel. Visualize yourself attending daily classes with students half
your age and trying to relate to them during your off hours. Shared living
quarters may or may not be a part of the program, but realize that this
immersion system is harder on the older career changer for more reasons
than just financial ones. Are you still excited about the prospect?
How about
the responsibilities that you leave at home? Can your present job survive
without you? What about your family, your friends, your other activities?
Will you come to resent what you've had to give up just to take on a job
that initially pays $800 to $1,200 a month and increases, at the regional
pilot level, to $1,200 to $1,800 per month? It may take you four to eight
years to regain your former income level.
Maybe you've
decided to try and commute to your training site. Can you afford the travel
time and hassles that will interfere with your learning? Is your performance
going to suffer because you're exhausted just by getting there? What happens
when you don't finish the various ratings in the time allotted? Can you
afford the extra time and money it may take to accomplish your goal?
I'm definitely
trying to paint a gloomy picture here so that you'll see the dark side
of the equation to help balance the glitzy "pilots wanted" advertisements
that can easily cloud your decision making. Now let's look at some less-glamorous
alternatives to the rapid immersion system to see if these options might
mitigate some of your concerns and achieve your goal at the same time.
Home schooling,
as I like to call it, is the local training alternative that allows you
to complete your flight training at your own pace, on your own time schedule,
while still maintaining a "life" by hopefully funding the training through
a reduced work schedule and some shuffling of priorities. Since you are
facing a large financial drain, try to plan a training schedule that allows
you to minimize your dollar loss from your regular job.
Perhaps
you can begin work earlier or later to allow some training time each day,
much like at a "regular" flight school. Work with your instructor to set
up a structured program that lets you fly at least three or four times
a week and includes ground instruction before and after each lesson. If
the weather turns sour, or maintenance delays arise, you can devote that
lesson to ground school subjects. And do expect to pay for the ground
time, just as you pay for those flying hours. They're important to your
progress and will likely equal or exceed the time that you spend aloft.
If you
find that you're having trouble studying at home, arrive at the airport
ahead of time and study in the flight school classroom where you'll have
the peace and quiet you require. If you work at it, you can likely duplicate
the big school's training environment by planning your training carefully
and sticking to the schedule with the same determination that fuels your
passion to fly.
Given the
expensive nature of your new career, particularly if you're starting out
from ground zero - very little or no flight time - plan to obtain your
private pilot certificate at your home airport. The training conditions
may not equal those that you see advertised, but you'll find that the
local contacts become in-valuable as you progress along your new career
path. The wealth of information you'll gain from the exposure to a wide
variety of pilots and their experiences will put you miles ahead of the
trainee who isolates himself.
After you
listen to students, renters, owners, transient pilots, instructors, and
charter pilots who frequent a local FBO, you'll have a much better idea
of how you can pursue your flying dreams. Many a first flying job has
been lined up long before the new pilot was qualified, just by networking
during those beginning months as a student. Your current or former coworkers
can be a good source of flying hours - and shared expenses - when you
point out how quickly you can get them to distant job sites or new client
locations that they had thought were unreachable.
Many career
changers want to quit their day jobs and dive right into flying full time.
It's a nice option if you've got the resources, but most folks need to
establish a balance between their old, steady income source and their
new, expensive flying passion. I recommend that you keep your primary
income source securely in place. The first few years of pilot employment
- following the large cash outlay to complete your basic ratings - will
net you little more than poverty-level wages. Your present job can also
serve as a backup if the industry or your health takes a downturn and
you need income.
If, however,
you've got the opportunity and funding to complete your training in a
short time, be sure that you do it in a rational, career-enhancing manner.
Remember, what you do now will have great bearing on how it's received
later. Investigate all the alternatives thoroughly, just as you would
any major lifestyle change. Use some good crew resource management (CRM)
skills, consulting all your resources and considering all the options
before you make your decision. For example, purchasing 10 hours of flight
time in a Boeing 727 - an airplane you're not likely ever to fly - doesn't
advance your credibility, just your gullibility.
Instead,
think about what will en-hance your career and demonstrate your real passion
for flying. Earning a CFI rating, for example, will teach you a lot about
flying, particularly from the right seat, where you'll spend a good bit
of your professional career. It's also a logical progression that will
increase your self-confidence, demonstrate your passion for flying, and
start paying - however slowly - some of those heavy flight training expenses.
By the
way, pilots who whine about "having to flight instruct" as a way to build
flight experience are immediately suspect to those of us who paid our
dues and are in a position to help you find that first flying job. So
keep an open mind as you progress through each training phase, and remember
that your job is to demonstrate to those who can help that you're worth
the effort and will put our assistance to good use.
Many pilots
wonder about the advisability of purchasing a flight engineer or type
rating to enhance their quest for an airline job and move up quickly into
the big leagues. Midlifers may figure it's a way to hurry up the process
and might make them more saleable in the job market. Most of this type
of training results in your obtaining very minimal flight hours and is
considered window dressing, eliciting little more than a raised eyebrow
from chief pilots.
If you've
got a solid opportunity to fly the flight engineer panel or log time in
a large airplane, by all means consider the tradeoffs in spending the
many thousands of dollars required. For most pilots, however, that money
would be much better spent acquiring more multiengine pilot in command
cross-country time to meet new-hire minimum flight times. Your story,
detailing each flying job you landed and how you overcame the obstacles
to achieve your goals, will be of great interest to your future employer.
Demonstrate your good sense now by choosing options that make sense for
your situation and demonstrate that you're willing to pay your dues.
One private
pilot I know yearned to leave the confines of his prestigious accounting
firm and pursue his dream of flying. He decided that a big-name flight
school and its concentrated learning program were definitely for him.
He completed his commercial and multiengine ratings during his three-week
vacation and returned home with a renewed passion to find a flying job
to use his new skills. Few companies, he found, would hire a low-time
multiengine pilot, so after some careful soul-searching, he quit his full-time
accounting job, hired on as a consultant to his former employer to maintain
a steady income source, and resolved to fly each subsequent hour in a
rented twin until he met the 100-hour minimum needed to fly for a scenic
charter operator.
Fortunately,
he had the luxury of a steady income with flexible hours and a high rate
of pay. He continued to freelance in the accounting field while flying
as a first officer for the Part 135 (charter) operator, gaining valuable
multiengine turboprop experience. Although his total flight time was low,
the combination of his education, work experience, maturity, and interpersonal
skills earned him a flying slot as he demonstrated his passion and determination
to change careers and live his dream. Today he's a captain with a major
airline, glad that he took that first decisive step.
For each
success story, there are countless tales of woe and hangar yarns that
detail the financial nightmares that led to a pilot's demise. They include
everything from folding flight schools that took the money and closed
their doors to stories of accidents that occurred during checkrides to
careers that were ruined by pilots flunking out of their first new-hire
training class. I've come to realize that for a midlife career changer,
many times it's not what you do but what you don't do that ensures your
success in aviation.
Be wary
of radical changes that appear to be the quick and easy solution. Quitting
your job, mortgaging your home, and racing off to a high-dollar flight
school may be the stuff of your dreams, but it can become your worst nightmare
if you leave yourself no alternate solutions should things fail to turn
out to your liking. How you've accomplished your midlife career change
will be of keen interest to the interviewer when you apply for your dream
job. If you can show a logical, well-planned career progression and a
real desire to do the job, you'll go a long way toward making your case
a believable one.
Smooth
your midlife career change by carefully planning each move. You've got
some great opportunities ahead of you - enjoy each stage of your journey
to that coveted left seat.
Karen
Kahn is a captain for a major U.S. airline and author of the new book
Flight Guide for Success-Tips and Tactics for the Aspiring Airline Pilot.
She also runs Aviation Career Counseling, a pilot career guidance and
interview counseling firm based in California. For more information, contact
her at 805/687-9493; fax 805/687-6226.
By
Karen Kahn
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