Business reporter Enda Mullen discovers the highly disciplined - and expensive - route to becoming an airline pilot.

Being an airline pilot has to be right up there as far as dream jobs go.

How many of us haven’t harboured more than a passing notion of jetting around the world for a living at some point in our lives?

It’s certainly perceived as a profession that has an air of glamour and sophistication, as well as being highly paid into the bargain.

But how does one go about it and is it something that can realistically be achieved by someone having a mid-life crisis who really fancies a career change?

Whatever the case, the Pilot Training College offers the opportunity to find out if it’s something you might be suited to at one of their assessment days, which take place close to Birmingham Airport every six weeks or so.

If you’re in the business of testing the waters then you’re probably best to start off by attending one of the open evenings the college holds rather than a selection day.

The selection day assessment is an intensive five-hour process which includes hand-eye co-ordination, verbal and visual decision-making and concentration tests.

There’s also a not insignificant fee of £300 to take into account, though if you attend an open evening first you can benefit from a £50 discount.

Interestingly, most of those who undertake the assessment are young people starting out on the career ladder, intent on pursuing their dreams.

Around 65 per cent of candidates are aged between 17 and 24 but it’s not the exclusive preserve of youth and on the day I visited one of the candidates was aged 46.

Part of the training, if would-be pilots pass the assessment, includes being knocked into shape, so to speak, or “moulding people” according to Dana Davies, who is part of a two-man team that conducts the flight crew selection process.

Mr Davies said it’s no secret airlines are notoriously choosy when deciding who to sign up as pilots and something as simple as the wrong sort of haircut might put them off. So as well as advising people how they should look they also work at developing the requisite life skills.

“We take people with potential and get them airline ready – develop an airline ethos if you like,” said Mr Davies.

“It is about the right attitude. Airlines are looking for a potential captain not just a pilot.”

Peripherals apart the real business of pilot training is an intensive 12-month course at flight school that involves spending ten months in Florida and two in Ireland – the Pilot Training College is actually an Irish company.

If you’re the sort of person who might be put off going to university because of a reluctance to take out a student loan then the kind of debt you’ll have to take on in order to pursue a career as a pilot might make you faint.