Expert: D. Norkus - 5/3/2005

Question
Ma'am, I am 36 years old and will be retiring from the U.S. Army in 2 years.  I have always loved flying and have 27 hours with my solo license.  I am very interested in obtaining my commercial airline pilots license and would love to be a reginal pilot or even a cargo pilot.  I will be 38 when I retire and would like to start my commercial pilot training now.  Pay is not a big issue to me since I have plenty of money now.  Would you recommend an aviation career considering job security and/or even finding this type of job??  What are your recommendations about Embrey Riddle in GA??  Thanks, Jim Boerner

Answer
Jim

"Would you recommend an aviation career considering job security and/or even finding this type of job? "

This industry is very cyclical. What may be good prospects now may not exist in 2 years. I am sure you have seen in the news how volitile the airline business can be! Even when you have a job with an airline, nothing is guaranteed as you can be furloughed in the event of an economic downturn. I experienced my first furlough three weeks out of ground school after 9/11. It lasted two years and that is short by most standards. If you do this, it needs to be out of a desire to do it purely for enjoyment, as there will always be an element of insecurity when employed by an airline until you have many, many years of tenure there.

"What are your recommendations about Embry Riddle in GA?"

Since ERAU only has campuses in FL & AZ, I assume you are going to attend their Extended Campus program. It is a very good deal for the money, esp compared to a campus education! Your degree can be had for ar less via this avenue and that program cateres to those already employed or who are in the military.  You can do your flight training elsewhere while getting academics done via ERAU EC. I did it that way and found it to be a bargain compared to what one could spend on a ERAU campus degree.

It seems as though you have many, many questions that need to be anwsered beyond what you have posted here. If you are desiring an airline career, I suggest reading over these sites for the "big picture" on what you will go through and what it takes:

www.jetcareers.com
www.flightifo.com

Both have message boards which will be hours worth of informative reading to help you make your career decisions. The jetcareers site also has topic specific articles you may find of interest.

Also, check out my getting licensed & careers page at-

www.geocities.com/av8trxx99/FAQ.html

Once digesting this information, you should have a much better idea of how to tackle this. If you have further questions after that, let me know!

Dottie