You have to figure out what you want to do. If you want to fly for the big boys.... that is one track, if you want to fly as a hobby, that is a complete change in tactics. If you are serious, go get X-plane and the TrackIR so you can look around the cockpit. Go get a good yoke and start practicing. Go do some intro flights at a local flight school. MAKE SURE you ask the local mechanics who they recommend as a flight school. They will know who pencil whips their maintenance and who does not. Start working alongside a mechanic for free to learn about the airplane systems. Work alongside several mechanics. DON'T be like those ignorant people who think it's like a car and just kick the tires and get in. Go find an older instructor with lots of hours and start flying with him/her when you can. Don't worry about memorizing all those regs just yet on the very first day of flying. It will come. Trust me. Fly the X-plane when able, fly with the instructors when able, work with the mechanics when able. Take a part time job at a flight school if you can. They love cheap help. Wash, schedule, learn...... rinse and repeat. Subscribe to the flight training magazine, join EAA and AOPA, don't be afraid to fly gliders and don't be afraid of tail draggers. If you can fly a taildragger, you will be way ahead of lots of other folks who put their feet on the floor like idiots. Go for a demo flight in a helicopter. Buy a 1/4 share in an airplane after you feel more comfortable and take your instructor up instead of renting an airplane. Rentals are used and abused and usually are not nearly as nice as the privately owned airplanes. Lots of time you can swap maintenance time for flight time credit. When you get your private, you can use that as a "license to learn" and start sharing expenses. Take your friends up and share the cost of flying to build time. If you really want to fly the heavies, find a "cookie cutter" school and go through their program. It's expensive but it will get you to your goals. (You start out making 1/2 a peanut a day and it takes several years to where you can make a reasonable living at it). Lots of people cannot justify 100k plus of training for 20-30k of salary for a while. It would be best if you were debt free and had someone to support you while you do this. There are real pilot shortages coming. The economic downfall of 06 really put a hurting on the number of people going through training. The avg pilot is probably 56 and the total number of active pilots is probably falling. It's so expensive to fly these days that it's a real buyers market and you can get some nice gear for cheap. If it's what you want to do, good luck.
Best,
Brian
Best,
Brian
