Stormynights, It certainly is an emotive issue with some. All of those professing to have paid for every single hour, it would not satisfy me until I had seen their log books and receipts for every hour flown. All the pilots I know who didn't come up through a scholarship, military or cadetship have flown for free at some time to a greater or lesser extent. Personally I gained hours towards the CPL by flying a car insurance assessor on his monthly rounds, which came to a stop when he got his own licence, bugger. Also used to fly skydiving on a PPL, but then I was a foundation member of getting the skydiving club going. Unpaid was the nature of things in my day, our skydiving airstrip was graded in virgin scrub by donated grader and driver on donated land. We used to jump at air displays for free using donated aircraft. The pix is of a display at Blyth in SA and the pilot in the background is one of the Hazelton boys (forget which one). His demand for use of his 185 was a jump the following day, which he duly did. I was the original airport bum, along with ZEEBEE, and the two of us put in much labour as pre pubescent teenagers refuelling aircraft, washing aircraft and helping on 100 hourlys, all for free and learning a great deal in the doing. Reward was an occasional ride. We live in a competitive and capitalistic society and anyone who doesn't take advantage of the opportunities offered to him is a dill. A guy refusing to take up an opportunity to fly for free on a PPL (providing its legal) in order to climb the ladder is lacking in ambition and drive in my humble opinion. One pilot standing on his digs that he's not going to do it unpaid is not going to change anything in the greater scheme of things.
