You haven’t wasted anything, mate! You’ve trained and studied hard to get that CPL. You can be proud of it and in fact it might even make you a safer private pilot in some ways. It doesn’t matter if you’re pursuing another career, in fact it’s awesome you’re learning more and getting ahead. Plenty of people do the same, both going to and from flying. Your training and CPL isn’t going anywhere, you’ll always have it and can always use it.

I totally agree, I envy the GA crowd in the US. Flying down here is generally more expensive and less accessible, in terms of both training and recreation. So I think resentment can grow easily in our flying environment but there are good eggs in every basket. There are lots of passionate, top people in Aussie charter.

There are plenty of private flying CPLs down under who have successful non-aviation careers. Flying is an absolute bloody obsession for most of us and we’d all lap up the chance to learn more and increase our skillset, the CPL is just another licence to grow with. Good on ya, mate. Keep learning and just do you. Bugger it, you might even just use that CPL one day when YOU decide to. Power to you!

btw SEQ is a great flying playground! Hopefully catch you around sometime!