Granted there are the unlucky ones that get nothing years on, but there are also lots of successful pilots that go straight into the rhs of a tprop/jet.
What would solve this entire argument for me is if the various FTOs published the figures of graduates versus number of job successes.
Those job success stories might only be the ones put forward by the training school, but it would still be extremely useful. I don't expect 100% or even 50% job success and obviously every student has particular qualities, but I would like to know whatever that percentage is and where these graduates are going....just seeing a general but statistically valid trend line would be a start.
Many training establishments seem only too happy to publish the first time pass rates, pass marks, liberal dosages of airline logos or glowing testimonies from the lucky ones who have found employment, but the only figures I have seen are from Oxford, and are absolute ones rather than relative. Just glancing at their site now I can't even find them again, and I may be wrong, but they never seemed like a running up-to-date commentary.
If we are expected to part with anything from £30,000 to £60,000, to pay for a minimally-transferable skill, in a saturated, volatile and possibly pessimistic job market, surely the least we could expect is an idea of how successful previous intakes were? Oxford seems unwilling to give this, but at least they seem to be doing a far better job at providing information than any other school I can think of.
Which ever school published those figures, regardless of where it was or what kind of course it offered, and probably at what cost, would win out. It is one thing for the FTO to claim it gives the best training in the world, but as all they are doing is preparing pilots for airlines; where those airlines are picking their new pilots from is the ultimate decider of quality.
League tables exist for most other tertiary education providers, budding-aviators more than ever are expected to be cautious risk-avoiders with a strong sence for economics, and yet the system at the moment seems to reward those who take a plunge at something with virtually no access to statistics and information.
In my case, no school has provided a reasonable set of historical statistics that could tell me what proportion of 30-33 year old trainees with good marks have found their way in to airline employment. I've heard some apparently do, and even some in their 50s do, but that hardly counts. How can I justify borrowing money off friends and family to fund this, without that information?
Pilots and firemen are all seen as hero's and admired! accountants are seen as boring and Lawyers are seen as rotweillers! simple fact is that people are shallow and a cult hero status of a pilot way out sees that of an accountant or lawyer! Hollywood has a lot to do with that!
Hmmmmm, I wonder how many pilots, absent from their childeren's and wive's birthdays or Christmasses, absent at odd hours of the evening, unable to drink many nights of the week, sleeping nights away, turning up home jetlagged and pi$$ed off, facing ever present down-sizing, all for half the pay of their accountant companions, maintain a cult and heroic status in the eyes of their nearest and dearest?