Old Dog

I'm 56 years young and thinking about flight training. At my age, are there
any realistic opportunities to be a career pilot?

"Vern Torino" wrote in message
...
I'm 56 years young and thinking about flight training. At my age, are
there any realistic opportunities to be a career pilot?

What career? Airlines? Probably not...you'd be retirement age before you
got close to being hired.

Anything else? Sure...if you can keep your medical, you can fly, even as a
paid Commercial Pilot. Instruction, charter flights, Part 135 scheduled
service, floatplanes, cargo, all sorts of opportunities exist.

The primary difficulty (other than the usual "starting late" issues...which
should not be a serious hinderance) will be figuring out what you actually
want to *do*. "Career pilot" is a pretty vague term, when it comes to
describing what job a Commercial Pilot actually has.

Pete

You could be a flight instructor if you have the time to dedicate to
the training. That may be the only way you could make much of a living.
At your age, you won't get hired by pax airlines. You could fly air
charter but there are already lots of guys waiting in line for those
jobs with lots of hours. It could happen but it would be a tough
battle.

-Robert

Vern Torino wrote:

I'm 56 years young and thinking about flight training. At my age, are there
any realistic opportunities to be a career pilot?



Sure, a member of my flying club took up flight instructing after he
retired from his management career. You won't ever be a 747 captain,
but there are lots of other flying careers available. None of them pay
enough money to live on, but you didn't ask about that! :-)


Matt