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Nihon_Ni · January 13th, 2008, 21:50

Stay in the Nav for one more year. During that year you should put yourself on a 1st year FO + O-4 retirement budget and fly with the surplus. That way, at the end of the year you'll have all your flight training paid in cash, you'll know what sacrafices you'll have to make in a second career, and you'll find that out while you have a safety net of your regular pay & allowances.

You may decide the QOL on that budget is not an acceptable entry fee to pay for this line of work. I have had friends retire from Uncle Sam only to start work in commercial aviation and realize that after 20 yrs of pumping overseas on a regular basis that they weren't being paid enough to be gone X number of nights per week/month/yr. Some have ended up taking other, better paying jobs that allows them to afford a plane of their own.

Being a commercial aviator isn't about flying to live, it's about living to fly.

January 13th, 2008, 21:50	#6
Nihon_Ni Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Okinawa, Japan Posts: 295	Re: Is this the right track? Stay in the Nav for one more year. During that year you should put yourself on a 1st year FO + O-4 retirement budget and fly with the surplus. That way, at the end of the year you'll have all your flight training paid in cash, you'll know what sacrafices you'll have to make in a second career, and you'll find that out while you have a safety net of your regular pay & allowances. You may decide the QOL on that budget is not an acceptable entry fee to pay for this line of work. I have had friends retire from Uncle Sam only to start work in commercial aviation and realize that after 20 yrs of pumping overseas on a regular basis that they weren't being paid enough to be gone X number of nights per week/month/yr. Some have ended up taking other, better paying jobs that allows them to afford a plane of their own. Being a commercial aviator isn't about flying to live, it's about living to fly.