How nice of you. Bye.
I disagree with your point. See my post above.
So I get the emotions in this thread. From both sides actually.
I think everyone should take this less personally.
Someone doubting can mean a lot more than a lack of passion. Some pilots seem to skip over that part. And some non-pilots might be too easily offended by that ‘skipping over’. Hence the tension.
13.000 hours of flying 737 and A320. 10.000 as PIC and I could not DISAGREE more. Sim flying is way more fun than real world flying, especially when you are flying VFR in a club. What do you do there? Flying to airfields in the same let’s say 100km radius over and over again. In the Sim you can fly in Australia, 5 minutes later in Hawaii. No one telling you what to to, if you don’t want to. Fancy an airbus right now - go for it, next minute you can sit in a 152. My personal opinion: save the time and money and stick with the SIM, especially when you get tired now already. Let me tell you: it does not get better after 20 years flying airliners.
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But also this one leaves out an important aspect of life: unless you’re a millionaire, what would have been the alternative career? And would that have been a lot better after 20 years?
It goes back to one of my first responses in this thread… if you give this up, what’s the alternative? Maybe then flying suddenly seems way more interesting…
There is zero shame in living your life as you see fit and please don’t let anyone try to tell you that you don’t love aviation if you aren’t current, don’t have a license, etc.
These are all personal decisions that only the person making them knows or understands. Anyone trying to tell you otherwise sounds like some grade school bully telling everyone he loves “fill in the blank” more than everyone else. My grandnieces used to play at saying that kind of stuff. They grew out of it.
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My brother was an airline pilot and before that, military. He got to do some cool things and see cool things, but eventually grew to hate both jobs for quite a few very good reasons. After a full career flying, he doesn’t fly now except in the passenger cabin of an airliner and even at that he tends to drive instead.
In my opinion, get the Instrument Rating regardless. At the very least it will make you a more informed pilot. Give yourself that much time. If u still have doubts after that, then just enjoy what u have with the club and MSFS. Remember, ur 45 now so u don’t have alot of time left for the mandatory retirement age here in the USA. Time flies as the saying goes.
I didn’t pursue it, and I had all my ratings + 1000+ hours by 24, but I have no regrets because I was able to have a family and dinner with them every evening with my jobs.
So what is the most important for u at 45, time is flying.
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This is pretty much what my friend told me so many years ago, and he was still flying the “Cigar tube with wings” for a regional carrier called Wings West. At the time he’d been with them less than two years…
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I think the OP got many data points in this thread to help in his decision. Many posted honest and openly their live experiences without sugar coating what the job in aviation is about today.
The conclusion I would drawn and did many years ago.
a) If you make a dream or hobby to your job realize that it might not be as fun after 20years.
b) Aviation and fun and love for flying can be two different things.
c) Only you decide. It’s your life.
As for me, I started quite late in my late 20ies with getting my glider license, bought my own after 2 years because I didn’t want to share the club gliders and luckily were able to afford it.
However as with gliders in Europe the weather limits the time where you pursue this hobby. So I got my PPL so I could also fly when there were no thermals and after two years bought my own 4 seater single engine aircraft. After having flown into every airfield within about 200km I started to get bored. And as this is a hobby why should I do sth in my spare time which bores me. So I developed the dream to use it to fly from A to B and got my IFR rating to be weather independent. At the time I wouldn’t admit it to myself but it dawned on me that this dream to use a small GA aircraft to fly from A to B in Europe is not quite realistic. Either the weather was good and I didn’t need all the IFR skills or it was so bad that it was actually dangerous (as the many accidents can testify to). So my IFR skills actually went down from the check ride onwards. Plus the airport which have ILS charge such a high landing/handling fee that I can easily buy a round trip ticket on a commercial liner without all the prep, maintenance, work load in a dense ATC European airspace and often inclement weather… long story short, I lost interest and getting older my risk taking tolerance shrunk (fortunately). I sold then GA plane, let my IFR rating expire about 10 years ago. Today (over 50) I enjoy flying my glider - no long briefing, no engine maintenance, no hassle, never boring, no ATC and I can fly (almost) everywhere. It is a hobby and gives me joy.
Surprisingly quite a few airline captains are either into gliding and or acrobatic flying… those who admitted it, told me that it gives them more satisfaction than the day job which pays the bills.
All the best and I am sure you make the right decision for yourself.
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Awww… that plane is like ‘when I grow up I want to be a Concorde…’ 
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Let’s see, I am not a pilot, I don’t have the money to formation, I am only a small and insignificant truck driver, I shouldn’t even answer this topic because this is directed to pilots but there I go…
Being pilot could be very challenging, I telling this because I have some friend which are pilots, but after a few years they starting to lose this adrenaline. They say that the pike of the flight is take off and landing, after that is somehow like me, in my truck, turn on autopilot and let the plane go on their route, they say even more, I am lucky because I can stop at a service area and they can’t 
In my opinion, every job have they good and bad sides, I have a job that I love, not pilot but a I significant truck driver, I spent a lot of time on the road, crossing some countries and spent a lot of time away from my wife and my 6 year old son.
Someone said, “if you do a job that you really like, you will never work in your life”…
I have a degree in solar panels and industrial maintenance but I felt like I am in prison working on a factory for example, that’s why I choose to be a truck driver, I love my job and feel free.
See if being pilot is what you really want, choose a work that you like and you will se if you get bored or not.
I know this could be a bit off topic and you feel free to delete my post if you want to. But it’s just my opinion to try to help you. Not like a pilot but like some one that want to help you to find your way.
Best regards from Portugal
Luís Pacheco
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This thread is really opening my eyes after a whole life simulating and recently flying.
My conclusions so far (some of then I suspected but helped me to put them in words, some of them are new for myself), totally personal of course:
- I thought I loved aviation just because it seemed to have to do with flying.
- Make your passion be jour job, and eventually your passion will be… your job. (I already knew this, but never thought this when thinking of flying, just when I became a software developer).
- VFR/IFR and generally speaking the rules of the air are just as fun as the rules for driving. I love driving, but getting my driving license was never fun.
- Aviation is the set of rules and inconveniences that detract from the joy of flying.
Tell you, from today on, I’m going to enjoy flying (both virtually and for real) even more.
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That thing is such a piece of :■■■■: even worse than the overengineered BAe Jetscream 32. It was banned in a couple of European countries pre-JAA times until JAA allowed it to fly in EU airspace and every member state had to allowed that flying tur d. At least that’s the story I heard. Its a scary machine.
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What? That’s one of the greatest aircraft ever built!
The saying was that if you can fly a Metro, you can fly everything.
The first aircraft I became captain on.
The Metro II even had a booster rocket installed to get you out of ground effect in case of an engine failure.
The max wiper speed was so low that you couldn’t use them during a flaps up approach and you had a max (not min!) reverse speed as not to bend the wings. 
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I was about to say the same so that I shut up lol and I second that 100%! 
IR for the sake of safety at the first place! 
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Sounds more or less like the Jetstream (without the rocket booster) first aircraft I became captain on 
By the way this: “if you can fly …, you can fly everything”, they use that on every aircraft type I found out. I’ve heard it when I was flying the jetstream, which I kind of agree with. When I started flying the ATR: “If you can fly ATR you can fly everything”, well no, not really, put an ATR pilot in a Jetstream with only steam gauges, no flight director or autopilot, no automatic rudder trim or FMS and see how they perform. Even the older -500 are significantly easier to fly than a Jetstream or Metroliner.
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I have my PPL and IR and totally feel you on training blues. I remember one lesson I was learning to do a DME arc (something I will never do IRL - has anyone done them in the past decade? lol) and I actually almost nodded off, it was so boring.
I don’t use my IR much, as most encounters with clouds will give you ice or convection in the north east USA and you need FIKI/onboard radar to deal with those.
That said, I would consider an IR to be almost mandatory because weather changes all the time, and if you need this skill in your back pocket. I can think of one example of flying VFR where having an IR rating would save your butt. What if you’re flying over water at night without a moon and the dark sky is over dark water? No horizon. Can be VFR conditions but you’re essentially IFR and any spatial disorientation and inability to follow the instruments could spell disaster. Throw in some fog or haze? Toast.
You may say I won’t fly over water at night in a single, but I’ve also flown on a moonless night over farmland without any roads/city lights and essentially had the same view (black over black). Needed to fly the instruments.
One time I wanted to fly out for dinner with my best friend to a coastal town and it was VFR but the weather for my return was 1,500 ovc with light rain, no convection, totally stable atmosphere. I was able to make the flight and have a nice dinner outside 150nm east of me where the drizzle hadn’t reached. Then, filed IFR on the way home and shoot an ILS. My friend thought it was so cool that the autopilot was tracking the glideslope in when we broke out of the clouds. The 1,500 ft clouds were perfectly high enough for a sea-level airport and a newly rated IFR pilot. No newly rated instrument-rated pilot flies anywhere near published minimums btw, esp if you do it casually.
Finish the ticket, you need it. Plan your next flight to be with a friend or s/o to a new airport on a nice day. The excitement of exploring a new place will re-energize your flying and having your newly minted IR in your back pocket will give you more flexibility with conditions.
I decided to go back to school and can’t afford to fly right now, so do it for me!
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Actually yes, on multiple occasions, even on turboprops without fancy avionics, old school flying the arc using HSI and / or RMI. There are still airports out there without radar and only conventional arrivals and approaches. Although its becoming increasingly rare to come across one, and if there is one there often are RNAV alternatives you could use instead.
Nailed it.
@anon17491698 , there needs to be a passion, not a dream.
Many, much younger, have gone after the dream of being a commercial pilot, only to find out that it really isn’t their thing, some sooner, some later.
Step into the “way back machine” and pilots were revered as something special. Airline pilots were the rock stars of a new age. Times have changed…
Excerpt from Congressional Investigation following an incident killing 50…
Members of Congress said they were stunned to learn how little the pilots of redacted - irrelevant were paid, that they may have tried to get some sleep in an airport crew lounge against company policy, and that the first officer was living with her parents near Seattle and commuting cross country to work in New Jersey.
Today, getting into the aviation business can be a grind. While not everyone is going to get swallowed up by the machine, the various paths taken to build a career require a dedication and often sacrifices that few of us are prepared to make, unless we are driven by a passion.
Sometimes a re-evaluation is required to rekindle that passion. Early in my career, I advanced rapidly from flying ferry flights for a flight school to flying for a small charter. From there, I got picked up by a major Canadian airline.
I thought I had made the “big time”. I was one of the aviation “elite”. Walking through international airports in uniform with beautiful stewardesses (we still called them that, then) flanking me. Kids and parents alike watched in awe. I would hand out little pin on wings and plastic airplanes to speechless little ones. Took me a few thousand hours before I realized I was doing the same thing everyday. I knew restaurant and hotel workers by name. I even knew their kid’s names!
Aviation as @anon50268670 and @PZL104 described it was not supposed to be like that, in my mind. I had dreamed of flying. I had a passion for seeing new things and places in a way few people can ever experience. I realized the glamour of the airlines was no substitute for challenging myself everyday to become a better pilot.
I re-evaluated. I became a specialist. I went back to flying. That meant a 180 on skis plowing virgin snow in the high Arctic. Experience and time had me bouncing around the world putting aircraft into places they should never go, because there was an urgent need to do so. I found my passion again.
Decades later, I look back and marvel at some of the experiences, aircraft, and locations I encountered. There were some VERY hard times. There were flights that no-one should have attempted. I had been stiffed by disreputable employers. Even got shot at by people I was attempting to rescue. Every moment was worth it. The passion never wavered.
If you have a passion for flying, pursue it with a vigor. If you merely have a dream, carefully evaluate that dream to determine what it is you really want. If there is a seed of passion in there, water it. But do not sideline other aspects of your life to follow a wisp of a dream. Life is too short to make sacrifices to achieve something just to say we did.
Finish your PPL. Go fly. Determine what it is that put you in that seat. The next step will be obvious, to no-one but you.
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I vote this as one of the best threads I’ve come across, maybe ever! 
Thanks for starting this one @anon17491698 - and once again, best wishes and good luck, no matter what you decide to do with aviation. Four-plus decades later I think learning to fly was one of the choices I got right.
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