Well thank you G-LOST ... for a moment there I thought I was going to be an army of one
Anyway I still think some of you have missed the point ...
The sim operators will of course set the price for their products as high as the market will accept, that's a basic facet of successful business.
My issue is with that one little line in LASORS section F 9.1.
The problem is that pay-for-a-type-rating has crept in over the last two or three years kind of like the MCC did 5 years ago, to the point where it is now so prevalent that those of us who haven't got the glamour rating of the moment are at a serious disadvantage.
This is without a doubt the biggest and hottest issue facing not just wannabes but anyone who's in the job market at the moment, including several-thousand-hour types like myself who are sick of seeing 200 hour type rated people getting preferential treatment, how can we justify throwing £20something grand at some speculative type rating with no promise of a job at the end?
If we can't get rid of pay-for-a-type-rating then I at least want the ability to go buy that rating at a fair price on the global market.
Whenever a pen pusher is tackled on this issue they invariably start making uppity statements about 'JAA standardisation' or start to demonstrate euro-paranoia about 'quality of training' in such benighted states as Australia, the USA or Canada ... can they can at least explain to me then why should I not be allowed to train abroad and sit a JAA LST at the end of it to prove my competence ... like I can do with the CPL and IR already?
There isn't even the option ... it's just a bare faced "500 hours flying experience as pilot on type" before they will even countenance the possibility of endorsing a non-JAA issued type rating. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to it whatsoever.
I would seriously love to see someone challenge them in court over it ... hell I'd probably even toss a couple of grand towards the fighting fund ... we'd all be up for saving 5 times that if we could get that rule overturned
( Arrowhead : since you asked, my flatmate had 4000 hours TT, 2000 turboprop command, when he was called for the TRSS interview. Everyone on his course had around that kind of experience level. )