Great Career Ideas As An Airline Pilot

Many people share an ambition of wishing to fly. Even looking through history, many people have watched the skies and envied the birds. Certainly flight, is now a common thing, plenty people every year fly to far away countries on holidays, and this is all made possible through aeroplanes and jumbo jets. Technology has meant that any person with a bit of money can see the skies themselves by travelling in one of these aircrafts. But what we’re glancing at today, is not the marvel of flight, but the Careers that steer it. The pilots of these jets are working an amazing role, controlling and operating these planes that when fully loaded, can weigh up to 330 tonnes and travel at 555mph. As far as Career Ideas go, these are about as impressive as they get and if you’re considering it, you certainly have some work cut out for you.

Obviously the basic idea behind these Careers is to fly aircrafts transporting either passengers or cargo to their destination. Before the actual flight begins, there is some different work to be done, obtaining information about the flight path, the weather and the number and type of passengers. You’d normally then work out a flight plan such as flying height and the necessary fuel, sometimes it may be compulsory to make a refuelling stop. It is normal for a flight to have two to four pilots depending on the duration of the flight. The most senior of these pilots is the captain and he would take full responsibility for the wellbeing of the aircraft and the passengers.

New Careers as a pilot are not the easiest to attain. If you are serious about pursuing these Career Ideas then you should be up to the task. Initial requirements include 5 good scoring GCSEs, at least two A levels at decent grade and usually having an honours degree is a benefit, or would at least tip the odds in your favour. Training ages begin at 18, and maximum age can change but is usually between 24 to 28. You must be fit to take on these Careers, you must have good eyesight, colour blind can be a problem and your hearing must be good. Training for these New Careers is expensive, costing around £50,000, so acquiring sponsorship is a must and even then a large portion of the costs would be paid back from your wages. If accepted, you can expect training to last sometimes up to two years.

Even after you make the grade, there is still a lot of work to reach the top. These Careers certainly don’t happen overnight. You would be started off as co-pilot on shorter flights to gain maximum experience of lift offs and landings and in due course you would be promoted to a fully qualified officer. You can then aim towards working on longer flights after about 5 years of development, but again you would be starting off as co-pilot. Captain roles are usually presented after about 5000 flying hours or 7 to 10 years. If you are still interested in these Career Ideas then you definitely have a lot to look forward to and the pay is very much worthwhile, often starting around £30k and going up to sometimes £100k a year for captains. Not many Careers can lay claim to that kind of wage.