Ive waded into this before, and for those of you who dont know, I am very much against the idea of the SSTR, personally I believe its the thin end of the wedge.
The problem as I see it is the expectation of leaving training, and then sliding seamlessly into a nice shiney Jet; not only is that an unrealistic expectation, its proving to be far from the reality in the vast majority of cases.
What we need here is a reality check..am I wrong in noticing that a large proportion of wannabes on here seem to think its perfectly reasonable to hop on a complex type without any further experience?
If you think it is..go ask some of the Easy guys about flying and line training some of the low hour cadets they employ, you'll find the reality is far removed from the hype.
In many ways today has never been a better time to be a low-timer, plenty of entry level and Lo-Co's are recruiting and a heck of a lot of them are bonding crews, rather than offering cash upfront, better yet turbo-prop operators are back in vogue, which is a far better road to gaining experience..than going straight into the deep-end on a 60 tonne jet.
To all of you who think Im talking from a position of being fat dumb and happy with my Jet job...think about this,
3yrs flying SE piston
2yrs flying multi-piston
2yrs flying multi-turbine
Currently flying a jet........I havent parted with a penny to pay for any training on any aircraft, and Im no intergrated/modular student..just a bit of hard graft.
Oh and debt free
The arguement of lawyers and doctors carries no weight, put simply both of these professions (as well as many others) junior professionals have to serve their time before they can progress i.e. to partnerships/private practice etc..etc..most of the guys on SSTR courses want to skip this step out of a mixture of impatience, expectation, and desperation.