New JCer Hello from STL

Greetings and hallucinations, all. I've been lurking here at JC for a few weeks and finally signed up for an account yesterday. I like what I see here versus some of the other boards out there. Many of those are chock-full of negativity... it seems very balanced here. Good doses of reality without too much snark and hate on the career.

A little about me: 41-year old potential career changer. I won't tell my life story here, but it is probably not unlike many other 40-ish career changers: went to ERAU after the Navy, ran out of money in my second year, fell back on IT, and here I am, 15 years later and still wishing my cubicle was at FL370. I make a comfortable living doing eCommerce web development for a local small business, but it is wholly unfulfilling, would rather be flying, yada yada yada... you've all heard it over and over here.

I'm in the early phases of investigating a move to aviation, specifically corporate/charter. Obviously, that is more of a long-term goal, and thanks to the reasoned and seasoned posts throughout the forums here, I have a much better and well-informed idea of what things look like. It won't be easy or cheap. My wife will need to be super supportive (and she is). It might not even happen, despite my best efforts. But I'll be damned if I don't at least give it a try.

I see a lot of "just fly on the weekends" opinions out there. You know what? That's not good enough for me. If it was, I'd be doing that already. Nothing wrong with putzing around in a Cardinal or Cherokee... I'm just looking for more than that. If, after due diligence research I determine that a career move is not in the cards for me, then at least I can say I've checked it out.

One of the things that has been made abundantly clear to me is that in order to even THINK about getting into this, I need to network. Hardcore. So, I figured I would get an early start, before I even relaunch my flight training. Not looking for free flight hours or any schmoozy thing like that. I would be COMPLETELY happy stopping by the FBO at CPS, SUS, or SET (or any facility that serves fine adult beverages!) to shoot the breeze and inhale some 100LL fumes. Hell... I'll even stop by and help you wash your plane.

So, if you are in the STL area, drop me a line. I'd love to get to know the STL aviation community better.

What are your hours like? Where do you currently stand with your licenses? Are you a CFI?

There are quite a few pilots in STL

Here's a snippet out of an email I just sent a charter jet pilot that should answer all of your questions (and then some...). She was quite enthusiastic in her brief response that she would be getting back to me with a more detailed response regarding my questions about charter/business flight.

• Graduated high school in 1990 (yes, that puts me at the ripe age of 41 this July, which is part of the crux of my situation...)
• Spent 5.5 years in the Navy, the last year of which I took Gen Ed classes at the extended Embry-Riddle campus in Norfolk, VA.
• Spent another year working at the shipyard in Newport News while continuing ERAU gen ed, in addition to starting work on my PPL.
• Soloed at 10.5 hours, and as I suspected, fell in love with flight.
• Moved to Daytona Beach to attend ERAU full-time. That went great, until I ran out of money at my two-year mark.
• Coincidentally ran out of money at 49.5 hours and ready for my checkride. Never got my PPL. :'(
• Dropped out of ERAU due to mounting educational debt and no money.
• While attending classes at ERAU, I worked full-time as the network administrator at the FlightSafety location on campus.
• Moved to St. Louis where my parents lived to find better work and better money. Have been working in IT ever since.
• Met and married an incredible woman. Over the past year, we've been re-evaluating my career path due to my unhappiness in my line of work. The unhappiness comes from the unfulfilled goal of becoming a professional pilot combined with not really enjoying what I do for a living... sitting behind a desk staring at a computer screen all day. In a cube the size of a closet. It's good money, provides my wife and I with a nice standard of living. But it's either spend gobs of money to find my fulfillment of flight, or let someone else pay me to do it.

I've been very fortunate in marrying someone so supportive... she's the one who actually encouraged me to seek this route. In fact, she started it all last year by giving me ~2 hours of flight in a 172 from KBLV. First time I had flown in over 10 years. It felt GREAT. The gentleman we flew with turned out to be a TERRIFIC guy. The aircraft was mine from Master On to shutdown, including 3 touch-n-goes at KMVN (they weren't pretty, by any means, but I didn't leave any parts on the runway, either...). We became fast friends with the instructor, and are nurturing that relationship, because not only is he and his wife are REALLY good people, but they are well-connected in the aviation and military life.

Did Riddle wipe out your GI Bill? I believe there are some schools around STL that are approved.

Riddle did. But, even if I still had it, I've been out long enough that it would have been expired anyway. I'll be paying for this out-of-pocket. If I go through with this, I'll probably be avoiding schools like ATP (to avoid the massive debt) and go about it more traditionally, if at all possible (thinking of my age being the major limiting factor, here).

Very cool. Welcome to JC! @spoolinup22 and I are CFIs down at MDH and are in the St. Louis area quite a bit during the school year (Aug-May).

Well. From one STL'er to another, welcome. You mentioned staying away from places like ATP to avoid massive debt, but if you're going to get all your ratings you need, it's going to be pretty pricey regardless. You probably already know this. If you're financially secure and have some money (like 30,000) saved for this, then I'd say go for it. Get your ratings as fast as you can afford to. Build hours as fast as you can, and get the ball rolling. Being 41 isn't a big deal, I know a girl who quit being a veterinarian at age 38 to fly, now she works for SWA and isn't even 50 yet. It can be done. Sounds like you've got your head on straight. Good luck..

From STL as well. I'm new here too, but welcome! Glad to see there is some aviation-love in this area. KSTL looks like a ghost town these days.

I'm currently working on the ol' CFI after stepping away from piloting for about 5 years. I actually thought I'd be happy doing something else. Ha! I'd be glad to help in any way I can, just shoot me a msg.

I never even considered KSTL as a GA possibility... are there actually some GA planes based there? That would be... surprising.

I'm basically putting together a personal feasibility study to map out the different ways to do this. Off the top of my head, I see these routes:

1. Continue working full-time at my web development gig, and get on getting a paper on the wall, probably a BS in Computer Science. After the degree, work on getting my ratings and getting to the point that someone else is paying me to fly, whether that is CFI, survey, pipeline, whatever.
2. Continue working full-time, concentrate on getting ratings to start getting paid to fly sooner, quit full-time work, concentrate on flying, and work on degree when not flying.
3. Quit work, hammer out ratings in very short order at a $chool like ATP, find a job flying (again, CFI, survey, whatever time-building I can) and get degree.
4. Quit work, hammer out ratings in a longer period of time then ATP at a local FBO, then see above.

I'm sure there are others, but those form the basic frameworks I see. Options 3 looks appealing to me, because at 40, I don't have a WHOLE lot of time left. I feel I need to accelerate things a little. I don't like the idea of going $60K into debt, especially when I can easily see that they are essentially charging $10K just for the PPL (based on the difference in price between ab initio and and walking in with your PPL in hand already). That's nuts.

Wow... that is some impressive advancement. I assume she is an FO, but still... impressive. What route did she take to move that quickly into SWA?

Your thought about ATP is one that I have also seriously considered. The gentleman I referenced in the first post is pretty convinced based on our 2 hours in the 172 that I would basically need around 10 hours or so, plus ground school, and I'd be ready for my PPL checkride. That's encouraging. I'm definitely of the mindset that the sooner, the better. But man... ATP is crazy $pendy. I guess the saying hold true... Fast, Quality/Quantity, Cheap... you can only pick two.

Sorry, I was referring to the area, in general, not Lambert. I'm a lazy typer.

She and I were both CFI's as our first job in 2001. She then got a job at Commutair (regional airline), worked there a few years, then got the job at SWA. I went the corporate/charter route instead. She has it pretty good at SWA!!

Me too. There are a few corporate flight departments there though. Good jobs for sure.

Welcome! I just moved to STL in feb of this year. Looks like the numbers are pretty good here for a M&G soon!

I'm down in Affton if that means anything to anybody lol

A Meet-n-Greet sounds like a blast! Could be done at CPS, or off-airport somewhere. If you all like delicious cocktails, we could always check out Sancturia... best cocktail place in town.

I've learned a LOT over the past few week regarding my impending career move. Now I just need to decide on where to focus my efforts... get my degree first, or get my ratings first. The 'fun' side of me says ratings. The "get the boring drudgery out of the way first" side of me says degree. Hrm...

I'm down for a meet n greet. Olivers at CPS sounds like the obvious choice, but cocktails sounds like a better option!

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In your situation, my vote goes for "get your ratings first". The first (and maybe) second flying jobs you have are less likely to require a degree than the career destination jobs you'll be qualified for after you have a few thousand hours. If you get the ratings first, then you can be building hours while you're getting the degree. Or, do both at the same time. I went through SIUC's aviation program, started with 0 hours, got my B.S. and all my ratings in 3 years flat. It can be done.

Yeah sounds like you got some challenging (but very rewarding) times ahead of you. Like tlewis95 said, we're both down at MDH instructing. We fly frequently to the STL area in hopes of seeing something that sounds like a turbine. Anyways, if you ever need help there's alot of us STL'ers here that need to have a M&G, but who knows when thats gonna happen!

On Monday, July 9, that's when! I decided to push this idea along.

http://forums.jetcareers.com/threads/stl-this-weekend.136848/

About dang tiiime!