Hi Mint, many thanks for your mail. Sorry to hear about your situation. I hear some of the present 737 wings cadets are being let off after 6mths line training and barely touching 500 hrs with nothing on the horizon after. Still though, they and yourself will be in a good position when things pick up. Many positions advertised are looking for that golden 500 hrs of jet time.
All of my AQC course were glad to get to the hold pool albeit with no promise of ever being called. We were all clearly informed before we signed the dotted line that there was no guarantee that we would ever get called unless the wings cadet pool would be emptied. But for those of us who didn't have the 30K plus to go down another route it was the best we could do.
Wavenn, I finished it earlier this year.
Big Jarv, nice to hear your story and thanks for taking the time to give me your opinions. I agree with you with regard to the FI rating. It's a tricky one though. The way I look at it is that one can sit on the fence in hope for the telephone to ring one day or plug away anyway possible and at least be able to show some kind of progressionn towards a flying career should an opportunity for a job interview pop up. It's a pity that the whole industry has taken a twist towards self funded TR's and more recently self funded line-training but I think that's a debate for another day.
Beak, thank you as well and of course I'm well able to ask them myself. I did however want to get some feedback from people who were or are in the same situation as myself. Hence I put all my queries where I thought I would get some straight answers, eg; Big Jarv's and Mint's experience.
In my experience it's easy to get wrapped up in the chase to becoming an airline pilot and in the process life passes you by. I've talked to many pilots and from what I hear it's history repeating itself. The industry moves in cycles and you just have to hit it at the right time. It will pick up again soon and when it does I'm quite optimistic that gates will open. In the meantime I hope to have a bit of fun with the flying instead of joining the doom and gloom brigade and procrastinating negative opinions. Looking back on where I was a few years ago I think it's great to have got this far. Sure, it would be ideal if we could get something more concrete in terms of job opportunity but it's to be expected at the present time.
Onward and upwards...eventually!