ssschmokin1,
firstly, anybody who passed a selction process to have their flying training paid for by either the RAF/RN/Army was NOT lucky. i've got painful news for you my friend that by the time a military pilot earns the right to stand in the bar wearing his wings and shooting the breeze he has earned that right by skill and talen,m period. you might want to believe that he is not any better than you but the stats and my experience would seem to suggest otherwise. if it wasn't about talent the RAF would just take the first 100 applications and train them to fly helicopters in afghanistan, fast jets in iraq and drop food and paras out the back of hercs after flying on nvgs at low level. they don't and we will never know if you could becaue you either failed the interview or didn't go because you don't believe in having a military. either way given how 'badly' you wanted to fly you didn't want to take the hardest way to a set of wings.
secondly, flying with BA cadets for the last 8 years only reinforces that whatever else is wrong with BA they know how to recruit the right people to train and put in a 757 cockpit with 200hrs exp. again given the numbers that apply and the numbers that got trained the numbers suggest that theese individuals also are not LUCKY just talented. maybee you need to believe that its luck that delivered the silver spoons but having worked for the prestwick grads who are now 744 skippers i can assure they got where they are by talent.
thirdly, i have many friends who came up the hard way. i respect them without reservation and enjoy flying with them immensly. there is a big diff from starting at your local glider club, instructing, and then moving on to the lcc, charters and scheduled airlines than just pitching up at ryan air or wherever and paying for your training and working for peanuts.
finally, i have no doubt you and I would have no problem operating together and having a beer down route having enjoyed a trouble free, crm positive experience. our abilty to judge each others ability secured over a 12 hour flight. our backgrounds a source of interest and a chance to exchange experiences. i have no hang ups with anybody because of who they work for. I assume the best until shown otherwise. where we differ is i refuse to accept that those pilots who have bought there postions can blame everybody else for state of the industry and the nose-dive to poor t&c's. I joined the RAF without having a clue what the pay was. anybody who adopts the same attitude towards a career in civil aviation and then works at a rate that undermines all our conditions has nothing but my contempt.
we CANNOT get enough pilots of sufficient standard at interview at BA, we are looking at starting up the cadet courses again as a result. the available pool of young/late start pilots is not up to scratch. this is a fact! you may celebrate the fact that people want to bankrupt themselves to fly but i think it's the fuel in the fire that drives MOL and WW's dream of low cost, MINIMUM standard pilots working harder than is safe to maximise profits. i on the other hand want to see more cadets getting trained, the military expanding and giving the 'lucky' few the most amazing oppurtunity. most of all i want to see everybody who has the hands and brains to do the job well get a chance rather than just those that can pay. i would have not have been able to become a pilot if i'd had to self fund.
off course not everyone who pays for there own course or starts late is not up to scratch. the cityflyer integration at BA is the perfect example. the influx of theese guys to the 744 brought a crop of excellent talented young guys, many average easy going opertators and those that would never have passed an interview anywhere else! again no doubt you will call this arrogance, i believe that the re-training stats would back me up.
i congratulate your achievment, if you worked for free or paid for your type rating then we will have to differ on what we feel the impact of that action has had on the ambitions of airline ceos.
Last edited by the heavy heavy; 18th Apr 2008 at 18:26.