Is it worth it to purchase an older twin to help in getting time? Or try teaching for a long time? The problem I see with teaching for your time is that there may not be very many students left to teach!!! Is the military a viaable option or is it a huge pain to try and be picked for their flight schools? I'm not talking about fighter planes but any cargo or jet time flying period?
Thanks
If you have the cash, you could buy an airplane, hire an instructor on the side, then sell it when you're done with your flight training. I personally wouldn't buy a multi-engine airplane if you were going to go that route, but that's me. I doubt you could get insurance on a multi-engine airplane as a low time guy, anyway, without an instructor. Until recently, used aircraft weren't depreciating that much. It was possible to buy a used trainer, train and fly in it for a couple of years, then sell it for about what you bought it for. The risk is, of course, is that you can't sell the plane when you need to after a couple of years or it depreciates in value so much that it would have been cheaper to rent.
Flight instructing sucks, mostly because of the extremely low pay most earn. That's the path most of us civilian guys took. If you learn to fly at a quality, busy flight school, they might hire you after you complete your training. Whether or not there will be pilots to train is unpredictable, but the FAA is showing declining numbers of pilots learning to fly. Whether that's because of the current economic conditions and/or less people are choosing the profession because of the recent extreme degradation of pay and quality of life is open to conjecture. Regardless, one might want to take into consideration going to a flight school where you have a reasonable chance of being hired as a flight instructor after training. Of course, that's not the only thing I would consider.
The military is an option, sure, assuming you're young enough. I would imagine that if you don't go to a military academy and/or you don't go through a ROTC program that it would be pretty hard to get one of those coveted pilot slots, fighter or not. It's competitive, and unlike civilian flight schools where the only criteria to begin training is a pulse and a checkbook, you'll likely be competing against other people who are educated, dedicated, and motivated. Getting a pilot slot in the military is obviously more difficult than just showing up at a flight school with the money. Hopefully some military guys will chime in.