RE: Any advice, tips, encouragement would be appreciated!
[b]A commercial school for A&P will teach you enough to pass the FAA test, but you will truly still know nothing. There's not enough time to learn it all from fabric and dope, through metal work on the airframe, fixing the composite where the idiot hit the hangar door, and calibrating the replacement carb on that old O-360. And we still haven't mentioned your desire, the turbines.
You will be qualified to go to work at an FBO, doing mostly inspections and minor maintenance. Or if you go to an airline, assuming any are still in business, you'll be little more than a helper until you have proven yourself. Even then, you'll only be allowed to do minor maintenance on the engines - they are usually leased, at overhaul time, or even time for a hot section, they'll just change the engine and send it off to a central facility for the major work. So you work yourself up to being hired by, say Aviall, and you do nothing but turbine overhaul. Enjoyable for a while, maybe. Boring after a while. almost certainly.
So. Airlines, good money, boring. Here it doesn't matter if you are an A&P or a pilot. Both good money, and as boring as can be.
CRF, good money, boring. No vairety. SSDD time
FBO, a lot of variety, but no money. A good auto mechanic will make 2-3 time as much as you will.
I quit flying for pleasure because boring holes in the sky stopped being pleasure. I stopped full time wrenching too. I was getting $63/hour when I quit, yes, I had specialized, and just got tired of it. No longer needed the income anyway, I saved my pennies and nickels, and made some lucky investments.
There is an alternative. Get yourself well known, and then specialize, set yourself up as an independent on call. You'll needd a good financial cushion, but when you get going it combines travel and a gret variety of jobs to do. I'm supposedly retired, but "The Airplane Compnay" charges $300 for an estimate, work is billed at $150/hour. All charges have travel costs, motel room cost, and meals added on top of the labor charges. When I'm on a job I live free, and get paid for it. Also, I turn down as many jobs as I accept.
So there are ways to make good money without being bored, but to get there you have to starve, get bored stiff, and work your butt off, but it can be done.
I would not recommend anyone going into aviation unless he/she just HAD to do it,orwas already independently wealthy and wanted to do it pretty much as a hobby.
Sorry I ran on for so long, but this is the way I see it.
Bill.
PS: you will spend more for your tools than a doctor does for his. Just a good pair of safety wire pliers will blow $100.wr.