OSOP, what do you feel about someone like myself who raised some cash by getting a small grant and then paid for a Bandeirante type rating followed by freelance work as an F/O until a full time Bandit job became available?
It may not have been a SSTR as you picture it but I certainly gave myself a better chance of a job by going out and getting rated on a type that was, at the time, fairly common and then canvassed all those operators. By "making my own luck" I was in a position to get that first coveted flying job.
It got me on the bottom rung of the ladder and after that it was much easier to progress up the food chain. Did I erode anyones T's & C's? Did I jump a queue?