Here's you complaining it's not a meritocracy, then you use people going to Public Schools and not getting a job as examples. So because someone can afford to go to public school they are better than someone who came from the state system? Also, just because people have served time in the forces doesn't give them the right to walk into a civilian airline job.
If you want a meritocracy, condoning people paying to get ahead is the wrong thing to do. Paying to get ahead is exactly what you are doing the second you give Eagle Jet money to sit in the right hand seat and play pilot.
You've missed my point, apologies I haven't put it correctly. My implication was not to imply in any way shape or form that having a public school background should give you the right to anything. My point was that these are well educated, well qualified men and women with clear flying pedigree some of whom who could not secure interviews for years. Whilst pilots with a clear lack of pedigree academically, within aviation and in life in general by THEIR own admission got lucky.
That is my point.
Paying to get to where you would have gotten anyway had their been a level playing field is not paying to get ahead; it's paying to not waste years of your life driving fuel bowsers, working in ops, or as cabin crew whilst someone less able and less qualified flies for an airline becuase their dad plays golf with someone else's dad. It is about getting to where you deserve to be anyway but no one is willing to give you the chance to get to as they will not invest in finding the best pilots.
The fact that someone cannot afford to go to public school is a brilliant example because this actually does not disadvantage them in any shape or form they have the ability to get into any university regardless of background. They can go on to become Prime minister or invent the longer lasting light bulb if they are able. If they aren't they may get a head start but they will never achieve much.
The fact that someone has many years service as a military pilot does not mean that they are Chuck Yeager but it does mean that for everyone of them who started the process they have beaten 2500 other applicants to be awarded wings. They have also survived a completely meritocratic and demanding 2-4 year course. You do the sortie if it's not good enough you get to do it again if it still isn't good enough you get a chop ride, three strikes and your out pack your bags. Race, colour, creed and education are irrelevant the best survive the rest get chopped. In civvy street you just keep paying until you pass, the standards best pilots are just as good as the military best pilots but the average standard is far lower and the product inevitably far more wider ranging.
You have demonstrated the ability to take complex and varying information and work under intense pressure and as an officer probably commanded other people whilst doing it but yet you say it doesn't give you the right to walk into an airline job. Maybe it doesn't but please explain what gives some with none of that AND no commensurate civilian experience the right to an interview over candidates with that background? I am not implying military pilots are better I am implying that they are hardly so rubbish as to not merit an interview!