Sorry j3, but if it looks like an advertisement and it smells like an advertisement........ well, you know the rest. That reply from the editor was nothing more than the worst case of backpedaling I've ever seen. Where did it suggest in the article that this would be a series of articles, thereby allaying our suspicions?
This Professor could be the former commander of the space shuttle for all I care, however his obvious attempt to belittle general aviation as a viable route to the airlines helps him to read like a subjective git.
I agree that there are many cliches about bush pilots being better aviators that are simply false and having taken the "bush pilot" route myself I'm forced to sometimes cringe at the things I read on here but let's face it, this article was quite obviously not without agenda.
I love that the editor believes that CASA has met its objective by promoting debate about safety, when all they've really done is encourage argument about bias in journalism.