I don’t see anyone crying about his lot, just merely expressing frustration at the lack of a structured career path. It does seem more and more that cash rules over experience.
Cabinready, your frustrations are the same as those of many a low houred pilot, and not all low houred guys are 20 years old, or even 30. I started in 2001 at the wrong side of 25, completing it in 2005. During that time the P4TR, P2F beast seemed to get a strong foothold in the industry. The old route of working your way through the system was the big draw for me and I was happy to serve my time at the bottom and to experience some challenging and fun flying. That particular rug was well and truly pulled from under my feet as the P4TR, P2F craze took hold.
Guys I know who had gone the instructor route soon realised that the £6000 outlay and many hours circuit bashing for poor wages wasn’t getting them onto the next rung of the ladder. Even turboprop outfits were starting to ask for cash up front for the type rating, in return for a meagre salary. This was bad enough in itself, but the progression from TP to jet involved coughing up yet again for another type rating as the experience gained again seemed to count for nothing. In the end. everyone I know (except one) who did the FI route had to eventually pay for a type rating in order to move on.
So the structured career path of the traditional hour building route has been replaced by, pay to be an FI, then pay for a turbopropTR, then pay again for a jet TR. No wonder people are short circuiting straight onto jets, in the long run it saves cash. As for me, this whole pay to work thing is out of my league, so I am back in my old job, still thinking of what might have been, but at least I can afford to live. Who knows, the industry may all change and I might get a second chance, but I won’t be holding my breath.