Starbbuck:
"No, of course I have no sympathy for the masses of self centered P2F pilots who are ruining things for everyone else in their efforts to jump the queue".
I have now retired after half a century of professional flying. I started off from a very humble background with very little financial support. I joined the ATC and went solo in a glider in 1957. I then went through a lot of selection and got a Flying Scholarship (PPL on Tiger Moths) in 1958.
I was lucky enough to be accepted into the Royal Air Force as a pilot in 1960 after yet again, considerable selection procedures, which was just as well as I did not have two brass farthings to rub together.
I then went on to have a wonderful and rewarding career in aviation which has just recently ended at the age of 69.
Aviation is all about being in the right place at the right time.
However, I am absolutely fascinated by your statement about "jumping the queue".
What queue is that? Is there a law about jumping your queue? Is this queue laid down anywhere?
Is this the same "queue" that I found myself in whilst doing my civilian instrument rating at Kidlington at my own considerable expense (having been a training captain on four-engined aeroplanes and a Master Green instrument rating holder for years)? If I had wanted to join BA (which I didn't at my age), I would have been behind their OATS cadet pilots on the seniority list.
Now, if I had paid my own way through Oxford and had joined BA, which "queue would I have jumped"?
When you are starting to get your toe into aviation, life is generally sh*t. Stick with it and keep trying if you truly love aviation. If you are up to it and you are lucky then you will make it just like I did.
Good Luck.