I’m always fascinated by the different goals that people set for themselves in early retirement. Recently, I was chatting with MegaCorp colleague, Scott M, about his retirement in Arizona. He decided to take to the air and become a pilot! Here’s his story …

Setting goals in retirement is one of the most fun and inspiring things I have ever done.  It is a time when one can remove previous constraints and really think big about dreams, your vision and your future.  

About a year after retiring and moving from MN to AZ, I decided (actually, my wife helped me decide!) it was time to learn how to fly an airplane.  While I understood that being a 60-year-old student pilot was a bit unusual (less than 5% of student pilots are 60 or older), I couldn’t have imagined a better time for me to do it.  

Related: https://pilotinstitute.com/pilot-age-statistics/

So in January of 2024, I started flying lessons and completed my Private Pilot’s License (PPL) in August of 2024.  

I understood early on that I was not the flight school’s “normal” student; the Certified Flight Instructor assigned to me was just one-third my age!  While he is a bright kid and an amazing pilot, my sense was that he didn’t think I would be able to manage the cockpit – until I scored 93% on the written exam! At the end of my final check-ride, the examiner exclaimed, “don’t get overconfident, but you did above average…!” Given that 95%+ of their students are 18-30 years old and bound for commercial licensures, I took that as a huge compliment!  

When my wife and I were thinking about this, there were three key dimensions we considered:  

Money.  Learning to fly is not cheap, however, we do not have a lot of other hobbies that cost much.  We both traveled a lot while in corporate and other than a trip to see my wife’s family in India periodically and an annual trip to Mexico, we don’t aspire to travel outside the area.  We were able to fit the lessons into our normal monthly cashflow, so we didn’t have to give anything up for me to do it.  I expect that regional differences exist in costs due to demand and availability, but generally, plane rental, instruction, on-line ground school, testing and required equipment to achieve the PPL certification is approximately $20k-$30k. 

Learning.  After leaving the corporate world, I realized the one thing I missed most was learning new things.  Aviation opened a whole new world of vast learning opportunities—both immediate and longer term.  Staying current with skills, communications, coordination and sharp mental acuity is required to safely fly.  Every cross-country trip requires planning ahead, programming for airports along the way, navigation issues, weather briefings, contingency planning…the list goes on.  The combination of the planning, then the pragmatic execution of the trip in the cockpit brings everything together in a way that is immensely rewarding.  

Lifestyle.  Living in Arizona fits with flying!  The weather is perfect for flying most of the time… clear skies, incredible visibility and calm to light winds most days.  My wife and I love taking short “road trips” in the area and now California Wine Country is a 2-hour flight away instead of a 5+ hour car ride away.  The Grand Canyon, Sedona, Flagstaff, Lake Havasu, Las Vegas and so many other attractions are now within easy reach, and we can’t wait to experience these places from the cockpit of the 4-seater.  Not to mention that being a pilot kind of fits my personal “brand” of being adventurous.  Yes, I have a motorcycle and I still hear “Danger Zone”, thinking of Top Gun Maverick (Tom Cruise) when I’m headed to the airport to fly!  

At 59 years old, I retired later than many FIRE people, but with good health, high motivation, and most importantly, incredible support from my amazing wife, I have been able to do things that I never imagined possible!

In his book, Be Useful, Arnold Schwarzenegger writes: “If you only aim for the smaller goal, the big goal is automatically out of reach.”  

What dreams or goals can you pursue now that you may have kept in the back of your mind previously?