Its heart warming to see that the Moderators of PPRuNe have had the integrity to re-instate this thread...if it had continued to be banned (along with the 3 other VE threads) then they could well of been accussed of supporting what now appears to be a pathetic crook.
Well done mods for application of common sense and some sorely sought after integrity: you shall rule
The lesson from VE is that the market has now got to the stage where it is absolutley accepted that guys who spend £80+ for basic training are now expected to pay for their career without the guarantee of any return - even to the point where a jumped up con artist living in a fantasy world can easily exploit these guys without an afterthought.
And yes I heard all the stories about the interviews before this story broke and my advice was to steer very well clear of these guys as they were neither very good or even serious. Add MH's track record into the mix and you have a very obvious sting which when you are blinded by desparation for a pilot job after spending £80k is not actually that easy to see. Both MH and David Lawrence were almost laughing at the poor interviewees for their naivity - they couldn't believe their luck, like candy off a 5 year old. Scum.
C'mon guys what happened? At this moment in time our industry is severly lacking integrity. The market for taking money off wannabees for type ratings and a few hundred hours is so rife that even the training schools now make it a mainstream offer for their student pilots....and VE is a resultant of that culture. And whilst it would be naive of me to say that such a lucrative revenue stream should be ignored by these operators/schools someone along the line has to make a stand.
I hope that the VE experience will reverberate around the chat forums, training schools, airports, newspapers and courtrooms so violently that students/low hour guys stop to question some of the less genuine offers and actually slow the momentum of this route further developing as the industry norm forever more.
Highly unlikely that is, but if that
is the long term result then MH may have just done the industry a favour....possibly the last chance he's ever going to get to bring anything positibe to our industry, albeit unintentionally.
If you are one of those guys who were unfortunate enough to buy into what appeared to be, on the surface, a credible operator and want some advice or pointers/contacts then PM me and I will do what I can (possibly not very much but if I can help I will
). To the others who were touched by the dark side - may the force be with you young Jedis.
PP