Page 30 - Feb 20 TNT

Jet Journal
Turning Professional
by Kevin Ware
Every month I receive a surprising number of reader emails from pilots on the subject of turning
professional. Almost all have a couple of thousand hours of flying time, a commercial license and are in their 50s or early 60s. Many are professionals in other fields such as doctors, lawyers or accountants, or have been successful in business and want to “pivot” (the word often used) into doing something else. The questions I am usually asked include: How did you personally get into doing this? What is it like to fly professionally?
And, (following a brief description of their own pilot credentials), what can I do to improve my chances of “turning professional” where I am paid to f ly nice equipment? There seems to be enough interest in the topic to where I thought I would share my own story.
My piloting background is unique with a route more circuitous than most of those writing me. I started flying in my last year of high school just because I was always fascinated by airplanes and took the first opportunity I could to act on that interest. A year or so later, I had a private license and 100 hours of flight time only to realize that flying recre- ationally was not an activity I could af- ford. I either needed to figure out how to get paid doing it or I would have to quit. Luckily, I married someone very supportive of what I wanted to do. My wife and I lived in south Florida and with both of us working, we had some (not much) spare funds. The weather in Florida was always good and the flight training relatively cheap. We lived off my wife’s income and I spent mine on flying. In just over a year, I had a commercial license and a CFI rating. With all of 210 hours, I got a job teaching other people
how to do what I just learned.
At that time, airline hiring required a
couple thousand hours plus instrument and multi-engine ratings, and in most cases, a four-year college degree. I was building flight time as part of my job, so that was not a problem, but the col- lege degree was a different matter. So, I enrolled in a local community college while instructing full time and finished my freshman year. But in south Florida at the time, the only university offering a four-year degree was a private institution with tuition way beyond my reach. So, my wife and I decided to return to her home area (Seattle), where I could attend a public university at much lower cost.
Within a week or so of arriving in Se- attle, and with about 1,000 hours of total flight time, I obtained another job as a f light instructor. The pay was around $4 to $5 per flight hour, which was not bad given working at McDonalds (a job common to other college students) paid about $1.50 per hour. Three years later, I had over 3,000 hours and was close to finishing my Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Washington. I was prime airline pilot bait, but there was a recession underway and the fish were
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