Every few months I get a marketing postcard from our local Estate agent (Realtor) telling me that now is an excellent time to buy or sell....or indeed both! For decades now they have been sending some version of this card. I am always amused at the slant they put on any financial disaster or bubble such that it attempts to bring business through the door. Indeed I admire their efforts to keep paying the bills and providing a livelihood for their employees. The card goes in the bin (trash) but I honestly like to believe that their optimism is rewarded.
I’m not sure why people think that flying schools should be better guardians of morality when they also have bills to pay and mouths to feed? That notwithstanding, who am I to say they are wrong? The idea that there are hordes of gullible “wannabes” and presumably their equally gullible parents, all tripping over themselves to part with their hard earned fortunes with little more knowledge than the optimism of a sales pitch seems largely unlikely. Pods of destitute parents living under an overpass with their belongings scrunched into the rusty basket of an old supermarket trolley are still a very rare sight!
I’m presuming that a successful career as a Quantity surveyor or a Social influencer (whatever that is?) is probably much more stable and rewarding in the long run and in the grand scheme of things, but....honestly.... who ever grew up wanting to be one of those? Airline pilot has much more cachet and glamour. The shiny stripes, the sharp uniform, hat worn at a jaunty angle, the cool sunshades, the admiring glances and perceived envy as your job whisks you off to Fiji for a week on the beach with your young and equally glamorous crew hanging on your every utterance and laughing at your boundless wit and humour. I mean, come on! What is there not to like? All it takes is some dosh and a few months of “whenever you feel like it” training at Puddlewick-in-the-Marsh flying club (Now International Airline Academy.) 200 hours and a fresh blue licence and....boom!...Sully’s your uncle! and soon the estate agents postcards will be drowned on the doormat by vanilla enveloped interview offers from airlines wondering where you have been all this time? Even if that doesn’t happen straight away, you will still be the envy of your mates who are training to be Quantity surveyors and Social influencers! Certainly Aunty Gladys and your grandparents will have proudly told all of their friends.
Now of course, nobody is going to own up to any of this. The only people you ever find here have been drawn to their love of the sky and their passion for flight since they first looked up from their prams.Truth be told, there is nothing wrong with dreams. There is nothing wrong with wasting your money (or somebody else’s) on those dreams. There is nothing wrong with listening to advice and doing whatever you want. A lot of folk (myself included) come on here and offer advice or tales from our own particular optic. That advice ranges from awful to excellent and everywhere in between. Use it, filter it, ignore it! It’s nothing more than just another resource.
I wish every flight school only the best. That comes from being good at what they do and being good as a business. I’ve seen a lot of “good at what they do” businesses fall by the wayside for much the same reasons as other businesses do. They fail to sustain a profit! So if it was my business I would market with every hyperbole at my disposal and truly hope that the future lived up to that hyperbole. Car manufacturers do it. Aircraft manufacturers do it. Certainly Estate agents do it! All of those industries sell products at costs that puts flight training into the shade! So, stop picking on flight schools! If someone wants to buy a dream then someone should be selling it. I’ve bought lots of dreams (mainly with 4 wheels!) Many of them truly didn’t live up to hyperbole of the brochure, but.......Cest la vie!