Hi BAP
I find your posts really interesting as it highlights your mindset extremely clearly and hence your conclusion of buying a rating. Lets see if I can get everything said in a positively critical manner.
I agree with you on the way the market has moved and now type ratings are becoming a neccesary evil - at least in the eyes of low hour wannabees. Let me be candid and honest - I am a low hour wannabee seeking employment as well. However, I have to disagree wholeheartedly on you assumptions that wannabees and airlines are not to blame, yet experienced pilots, advanced in their careers, are. Yes, it would seem a great concept for experienced pilots to demand that their company hires only the highest calibre cadets rather than the wealthiest, but that is not the role of those pilots or, I imagine, within their capabilities to make such demands.
Who is to blame? In my eyes we are. Yes, wannabees. We are making this bed for ourselves as we are readily paying training as it would appear there are no other options now. We have created the direct-to-airline route by not being willing to gain experience by any other means to the point that now your argument is correct - there actually are fewer other options now as not paying to go to the airlines leaves you open to spending years in the wilderness whilst other wannabees willing to pay fill the airlines requirements. I know several instructors who have simply become too "old" to enter airlines and have an extremely slim chance of jumping across to airlines. Are airlines to blame for capitalising on this? I would love to paint them black, but truthfully I think we have done this to ourselves. As you state, it's business. Furthermore - you state yourself that airlines are now requiring hours due to the sheer volume of potential candidates with self funded type ratings, and use this as a justification for paying to "work" whilst building hours.
As you state, the industry should only train the number of pilots it requires and those be of the highest calibre. I can assure you that if it was left to airline accountants then this would be the case in a world where wannabees didn't try to buy experience or an opportunity to gain employment. What can we assume from this? That those not possesing the required talent, skills, etc... bought type ratings? Perhaps in the past, but as you say it is now the only way; standing out as a perfect candidate without a type rating amongst the flood of newbs running to hand over vast sums of money is next to impossible.
We did this to ourselves and I'm not sure which I find more difficult to believe ; that there is little or no hope of reversing this trend now; or that we think there are no other options to gaining hours and ultimately airline employment. The latter is perfectly highlighted in your arguments which justify your reasons for buying a type and your current desperate situation where you have a type rating and now need hours to stand out before it expires.
This post is not meant to be offensive, or negatively critical, I just don't agree with you that anyone is to blame but us - and it appears to me that you're looking for anyone else to blame but yourself.
I am not making the rules I am just following them. Who has made the rules?? - The experienced pilots/Airlines, not me, I am new in the business!
Hear that? World's smallest violin playing just for you.
And again - don’t say that the low timers just have to stop paying, because there will always be someone who is willing to do so if he or she sees a job in the other end…
Yes, you BAP, so don't say 'someone'. You clearly state all the arguments and the damage that paying for type rating is doing to the industry yet are still unable to acknowledge that you are part of that without stating how helpless you are. You made these decisions, now please, have the courage of conviction to not blame other wannabes, 'comfortable' career pilots, the industry. That's probably what grated me most about your post, and I don't feel you're alone in this - in fact you're one of a large number of wannabes (...again).
Good luck, hope it all pans out okay and hopefully I should be up there one day if I can impress an airline enough with my skills.
M80