Was that because it was the MCC trainer used for the MCC course after the IR checkride?
It was used pre and post checkride.
I am sure that for the typical ATP candidate, who is a young man, in his 20s, with zero aviation knowledge when he turns up, often seeing aviation as simply a career opportunity with a significant bit of glamour
thrown in, this (including the mandatory classroom stuff) is all reasonable. It's just that, in Europe, little provision has been made for advancing the private pilot.
With the benefit of hindsight all my probs were of my own making and I live with the consequences.
I wouldn't kick myself too hard for that. The post-PPL training scene is a bl00dy minefield. And nearly everybody in the business has a vested interest and some were simply totally dishonest. I looked at the JAA IR route early on.
On the FAA training/checkride front, the CAA regs on foreign reg training somehow managed to breed a generation of businesses doing all kinds of funny stuff. By 2004, having got the FAA PPL, I thought I knew what I was doing but I still went up every blind alley there was. Eventually decided to give up on the UK; I signed up with a Part 61 school for TSA purposes and only then discovered that only a Part 141 school can issue the I-20 which one needs for the Visa
Oh well, there goes another $300...... If anybody is interested in an FAA PPL/IR route, I have all the details written up.
I don't regret having done my route because it has given me a few years of fantastic flying abroad, with at least a few more years to run, and what more can one wish for?