Well done Wannabee24 for having the balls and coming out to admit what 'really' goes on in schemes like these. I'll be perfectly blunt here, but it's a general trend in aviation to see the same old molly-coddled trumpets turning up in abundance with a cheque book about the same size as the gap between their ears. I despair at the naivety of some people in this game, and this is where the TRTOs and FTOs play their trump cards. Only the other day I picked up a leading GA magazine that had a 5 or 6 page article on becoming an airline pilot. The chief head of spin at Oxford had been quoted saying how great a time it was to blow 70K in their direction - 'train in the downturn and be well placed for the upturn,' or some other shoite along those lines. I immediately pictured the phones ringing off their hooks at Kidlington - 'I want to be an airline pilot, tell BA I'm signing up now.' Once all that doesn't work, they'll trot off to the ATP scheme in order for their heads to be filled with more propaganda. I see the same old faces when I turned up for assessment at my current airline. Lots of money, but lacking in any real ability and most of all any common sense. It must be nice in La La land!