Firstly I am not on a wind up.
Secondly a full time JAR approved ATPL course takes about 11 months, an IR 6 weeks, a type rating anything from a day to 3 weeks. Hence the 15 months.
I am fed up with pilots thinking that because they have a CPL / ATPL they should have the same social standing and pay as a degree trained professional (Though I have to say that this is a trait more common in FW pilots than RW). The current training system in aviation allows virtually anyone with a handful of dollars to become a professional pilot. Money is just about the only means of selection. How relevant is that to being a good pilot?
The reason Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants and many other professions and trades command the wages and social standing they do is becuase they have been through a gruelling selection / grading process.
Now if aviation made it harder to become a pilot by ensuring that only the good get through, then and only then will the wages will increase. Until then, pilots will have to come to terms with the fact that selection only occurs once you have spent your £60/70/80, 000 and you start hunting for those poorly paid jobs.
Even if you do make it, there are very few pilots (if any) out there who work as hard and are challenged as often as a doctor / lawyer / accountant / design engineer. Those few earn good money and rightly so (especially since those types of jobs invaribaly mean antisocial hours and hostile environments).