Founder,
Thats my point. Guys of yesterday did what I would call an "apprenticship", they became Instructors, learnt to fly an aircraft and Increase confidence in doing so. Now there is a so called shortage, this stage and the Turbo-Prop stages are being by-passed.
In this country there are a quite a few Turbo-Prop operators, Flybe for one are expecting to get 60 of the things, thats 300+ pilots. Now Flybe are widely quoted at accepting they loose the majority of their F/O's to jet operators, why, mainly due to natural progression, this in turn frees' up seats on the Turbo-Prop fleet for low houred and Low experienced F/O's, whilst the Jet operators get reasonably experienced F/O's to fly their jets.
I accept your argument that you would struggle to get a job as others are willing to pay for their rating, but that is just the problem! Go and do some Instructing for a year, then I'm sure you will be much more attractive to the likes of Flybe ( I don't know of ONE SINGLE F/O at Flybe who paid for his type rating before joining the company!).
As I said before, the sooner wannabees STOP paying for their ratings, the SOONER Airlines will have to do something about it, ie pay for your rating or at the most bond you.....
