VT, commercial aviation is not the law or medicine. It is not suffering, and will not suffer, a lack of applicants. There are thousands of you wannabes clamouring for every 'starter' job. That is precisely why you are having to pay for type ratings and so on - the employer doesn't have to, because it's a buyer's market! That's also why certain 'jobs' exist that ask people to pay for the hours they fly, and others that simply pay unsurviveable salaries. There is no equivalent of the barrister's pupillage stage in aviation; reduced terms at the bottom of the pile will result in reduced terms at the top. Not for me, but for you, if and when you get there. Why? Well, I've covered that before. It's the way this particular market works, and has been working for the last 20 years or so. The days when this was a well-paid profession are over, and yet people are still crawling over each other to get flying jobs at any cost. You are a commodity, and your stock is reducing in value - much of that reduction is down to the irrational way that people covet this job and will do anything to get in.
Your financial illustration confuses me. You say that £100k is not a lot of money and then tell us that taking £22k pa from Flybe would have resulted in 'the official receiver' (I take it you mean bankruptcy?). That sounds like an unsupportable debt to me! Your £100k investment must be made to give a return, and that means you have a vested interest in pay and conditions in aviation slipping no further. Taking a low-paid (or no-pay) job is no way to do that; you just exacerbate the problem both for yourself individually and your peers. By my calculation, you need around £1400 a month just to repay your debt (10 years @ 7%). That represents a taxable salary of £21k before any other expenses are considered - including that house! To service your debt and cover your family's living expenses, you'll need at least £35k pa. That's not starter pay in any industry! £100K is a lot of debt when looked at in those terms. Did you do these calculations before you started down this road?
I don't know; the more you 'explain' your position, VT, the less I understand it! I suspect it stems from an inadequate or incomplete understanding of this industry on your part - and you're not alone in that. There are far too many wannabes who believe that they will be able to walk into a £40k+ job at some point, yet are prepared to work for little or nothing at that same job, not realising that by doing so they make that £40k job even less likely to happen!
Scroggs