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I think your post was full of 'substantive' stuff, but you choose to dwell on the career prospects, which is quite appropriate for this forum.
You have moved from
getting twice the national wage on a jet with 500hrs TT
to
Most start on a little over £30k and move up to £40k within a year or two - twice the UK national average male wage.
I think we need to remember females can fly planes too, but I will go with your revised criteria. Lets get some facts in here, the average male salary in the UK is around £25k.
So £30k (shall we say that is 500hrs mark) is 1.2 times national average. After one or two years (lets say 1400 to 2300 hrs TT) you would be on £40k, 1.6 national male average. You would need to tell me how many hours the average UK pilot has when he hits £50k, I don't know.
I would definitely say it's good money for an entry level position for which you only need A-levels and one year further education. You do have the overhead of repaying all that cash, so disposable income will take a hit in the early days, but the money is going to be excellent by the time you are in your thirties.
Yep, you will not fly a large passenger jet for the airlines in the US with 500 hrs inexperience. Some would say that is a good thing.
US majors do not need to spend money training cadets, a flourishing and sensibly regulated FAA GA system ensures a good supply of well trained candidates. US majors are even smarter, they let the commuter outfits train their jet pilots. By the time you are in the RHS of a 737 in the USA, you are an ATP and have already been calling the shots in the LHS of a turbo prop. That is extremely desirable. The money rises quickly then, and is better than an equivalent in the UK.
Maybe the real question is how many US/UK entry level pilots would move to the opposite side of the Atlantic. I think more UK wannabes would want to work in the US, than US wannabes want to work in the UK, but that is just a feeling. Ooo Err, I feel a poll coming on,
.
As a British citizen I cannot live and work in the USA as a pilot. so it has never been an option to be regulated by the FAA.
Of course it's an option, this forum is full of Brits with only an FAA certificate. I'm one of them, not all of are solely interested in flying for an airline. Sure you cannot work in the US, but that's because there are plenty of wannabes with US citizenship. If there was a shortage of wannabes in the US, the airlines would quickly hire from Europe. There aren't so they don't. That's because regulation in the US is more sensible and accordingly there are more wannabes. You say regulatory differences play a small part, I think it's far larger than 'small'.
Neither would it have saved me any money to conduct any part of my training there.
Seems like that is changing, FAA IRs are now going to be worth something for the UK wannabe, and about time too.
Happy flying Stateside.
Thankyou! I enjoy flying in the UK too, but I am fortunate that the CAA is reasonable enough to accept an FAA certificate to fly day VFR. Not quite as reasonable as the FAA, but as day/VFR 'jollies' are all I want to do in the UK, I am happy there too.
Wibbly P
I don't know why you are beating up FAA certificated pilots and FAA certificated airplanes on safety grounds. The FAA system is certainly not less safe than the CAA/JAA system, and FAA standards are accepted by and are used as a model for the world. As an example, look at the integrated and extremely safe and efficient FAA ATC system, far better than the mess in Europe. I would never dream of flying from London to Paris now, total waste of my time, let the train take the strain. You never get those sort of delays flying LAX-SFO, a far busier route.
I am equally happy to fly a UK or US registered large transport jet, you obviously are not. I do think that FAA entry level jet pilots are far better trained than CAA entry level jet pilots, but statistically flying is so safe it doesn't matter. Inevitably a CAA jet will crash because the 200 hour boy wonder doesn't have the experience/balls to question his skipper, but you are still safer sitting behind these kids than on the drive to the airport. It's all risk/reward calculation. I don't beat up the CAA's regulation of commercial activity on safety grounds, but will post an opposing opinion when people here post who obviously don't know jack about the FAA system.
Sure, the whole yellow tag system is probably based upon too much trust, but the FAA recognises this and is making changes. I am sure that JAA planes are also flying with poorly documented parts, look at some of the countries in there! Even so, the human is more likely to fail than the machine.
nonradio
I agree with you, I was just adding what I think is clarification.