The people giving a negative response to this post have probably never paid for an hours flight training in their lives, who therefore think a job is their god given right and certainly don't want any, what they consider unfair competition from a self sponsored pilot already thousands of pounds in debt.
Wrong! Thats a hugely naive statement. There are a lot of guys - ex-Hamble chaps excluded (doffs hat) - that paid for their integrated/modular training and earnt their right to sit RHS on a jet. That right came from experience building, investing time in clubs and communities whether that be through flight instruction, glider tugging, banner-towing, aerial photography, cleaning aircraft for hours, single pilot operations etc.... The situation NOW is hardly comparable to that of the 90's when PTF schemes were not so rife and most
did require some kind of higher minimums.
The whole point about this discussion is what has happened to the traditional route of earning the right to a position RHS and how those who, with no experience, have leapt frog the q have/will effect our future T&Cs (and possibly quality). And when I say
our T&Cs that includes PTF pilots currently on the dole.
If economic capacity was very high (like 2/3 years ago) you could say that this discussion would be more about the quality of training rather than the right to earn a RHS - because extra pilots
were needed. Its now not the case: Capacity has dropped off significantly and now there is an abundance of umeployed highly experienced pilots on the dole who cannot get jobs precisely because someone, potentially with no experience, is paying to do their job.
Perhaps there's a lesson here? We as pilots should be sticking together to protect the value of our jobs either European or worldwide - and yes that includes graduates/wannabees. Some professions require you to be a member of a union and wouldn't put up with this PTF nonesene whilst others require newbies to successfully demonstrate committment to the community before they can even get a job interview (e.g. lawyer, doctor, actor). Now there's a thought...
