Becoming An Airline Pilot At 18?

Why do I get the distinct feel this is nothing more than a day dream! There very few people if any who would make a job offer to some body who has yet to qualifie let alone have any experiance! Then we add in the bit where your planning to Quote "Take up cattle to jump out of aircraft to build up hours!

Very few if any regional airlines will consider you until you are 23 and eligible for the ATP. In the current economy, you won't even be remotely competitive until you have an ATP and at least a 2 year college degree unless you know people in high places. Over 90% of all applicants hold at least a 4 year degree, by the way, even at the regionals. Get a Part 135 job for a couple years and you'll be more hireable, but without at least a 2 year college degree you'll still be weak candidate. Your chances of making it to the majors without one are very slim.

Your plan is very well thought out. Have you thought about going to college though. If you just want to fly has soon has possible. I would suggest and online college so you can go through college literally while on flights. This is very similar to my plan except I suck at cooking so I'll get some other job. But, basically after I get all the things that i've wanted and put some money in the bank. Everythings going to flight training. Why should regionals hire you though? They have other pilots there who are older than you and have more hours. A more realistic plan would be working to working for some small airline like Cape Air. Money is crap there though. But, they don't really hire any FOs anymore. So you'll earn PIC time in a Cessna 402 and therefore, build airline expierence. Start meeting more airline minimums and then plan to be hired by about 21-24 if you have a good bit of multi and airline expierence (PIC)

Do a two year Diploma in Aviation at Air Hawke's Bay Ltd, a flight school in New Zealand that has partnered with Air NZ

I don't see how that could be a bad goal to have, I just don't know how attainable it is but if nothing else you can stick with the skydiving gig and build even more time until the job market improves. Plus if you get a job at a regional you can put in your time as a First Officer until you turn 23 and qualify for your ATP and can move up to Captain. If you don't mind my asking, how did you manage to pay for all of that flight time? I'm 17 too and in the same spot as you minus about 200 hours and the PPL & Instrument or job offer haha trying to figure out how to pay for everything. Anyway it sounds like you have a lot going for you, good luck on reaching your goal.

College? You do realize that you'll be competing with thousands of other pilots who have 4 year college degrees, right? You're doing it all wrong. Don't get your commercial certificate. Cancel your checkride. Go to college first. If you don't have a 4 year college degree, you have 0% chance of making it in this business. The reason I recommend holding off on getting your commercial is because you have to have a lot of recent time in order to get hired anywhere. So, let's say you get your commercial and then go to college for 4 years. How much are you going to fly during that time? You'll have a very hard time getting a job after college if it's been 4 years since you got your commercial and you only flew a few hours in the past 90 days. Flying skydivers is junk time. Airlines don't consider that valuable time. Get a CFI and work as an instructor.

Sound like you have a good life plan, and enough money to achieve it. I'm sure you have heard that Alaska is the place to get experience to get a choice airline piloting job. The theory being that if you don't crash, you must be pretty good. Actually any place that has mountains and bad weather is a great training area. I've been on the ground side of aviation for over 30 years, and just about anyone flying loves it more than anything else, even in the airliners where almost all flights are uneventful.