If I could do it all over again I would__________________?

[Bug_Stomper_01]

Well to be perfectly honest for me I would stop at my private and just fly for fun. I have spent a ton of money (my own, not loans or grants) in this business for very, very ,very little return. Financially I would have been miles ahead to stop earlier on. My advice to my nephews is, fly for fun if you want use my airplanes but choose another profession as your mainstay and forget living hand to mouth like you will in aviation.

This cuts deep, and a more criminal offence than anything else by owners / operators etc that set the bar so high with wages so low.

[Bug_Stomper_01]

Same.

Drop out of school to eventually become a degenerate pajama trader.

Better than fixing and flying this garbage in Canada! LOL

[Bravomike33]

Nothing. Money isn’t the finality. Freedom is. See my parents and invest more.

[Schooner69A]

...maybe take Air Canada up on their offer of employment in early 1964 instead of turning them down...?

[co-joe]

Good question. I think for me, I'd take every penny that I invested in my flying career and invest in Microsoft, Apple and BitCoin, and WestJet. THEN I'd sell them all, and start flying with the proceeds from my gains...and still have a fortune in the bank.

There you go, I still remember the day a WJ exec came to my aviation class and told us about their IPO 2 weeks before it happened. Had I only taken my 18 K in student loans and bet it all on teal....

[dash8dave]

I think we all have stories like that. I can remember Tim Morgan coming up to me one day in his flying school, saying Dave I'm going to start an airline. What do you think? My reply???

Let me know how that works out for you Tim. Sigh. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Now it looks like he's back in the game again with Lynx. Tim, if you read this...All the best with the new airline.

[DanWEC]

Besides the whimsical crystal ball scenarios, I do wish I had buckled down and started an income property portfolio decades earlier, and just have a float plane for the cottage.

[OtherRedBaron]

Learn what a gas cap costs.

On a recent lesson, I forgot to tighten a gas cap during the preflight, as we were refueling at that exact moment. I didn't tighten it down, and somewhere on the second circuit, I noticed that stream of avgas spilling from the wing.

After calling tower, we did get that gas cap back, but not before I took responsibility for my error and realized that it's a four figure replacement part.

My car's gas cap is $30. That was a rude awakening.

[RoAF-Mig21]

I would have gone back to Europe in 2010 when I had the chance to convert my license to EASA, (or was it called JAA back then?)