I hope non of you will mind if I give a briefer account of the last 5 years or so!
May 2006 - Given my blue book, with the promise from a man I met at the bar the night I passed my CPL of some aerial photography work...nothing came of it and I moved back into my parents and got my old job back as a dispatcher (all be it at a different company, with considerably worse working conditions) and felt considerably fed up!
After 5 months of sending CVs (and a job interview from an airtaxi company who turned out to not only have no AOC but no airplanes I decided to do my FI rating. A week before the course started I got a phone call from a airline a friend worked for offering me an interview, I didnt feel it went well at all, probably the worse interview I have ever given! I wasnt taken forward for a sim check but was promised to be kept in there hold pool for next time.
Started FI course the next week, didnt really enjoy my time doing it with the instructor I had but pressed on, and passed in Jan 2007. And started work at the same school the next day - I was very lucky to end up at this school, I earned a SALARY, something unheard of to most instructors! I even offered to work 6 days a week to earn 20% more! (about 17k).
After a year or so of crashing into runways with students (and a few laughs along the way with some very good friends I met there) I was given the chance to work for the air taxi side of the school - this was a real steep learning curve. single pilot multi engine flights at all times of the day in weather i dont care to think about! But I learn many lessons doing it, many of which still help me today.
In nov 2008, a few weeks after I had started the air taxi work I got a surprise phone call from the airline I had interviewed with a year ago, offering me a sim check - it went rather well and a few weeks later I was sat in a class room learning all about a certain heavy turbo prop, and a few weeks after that set off for Dublin on my first flight as a FO.
two and a half years later (feb 2010) I came back from a weeks skiing, opened my pay check and saw I had been promoted to SFO (HR had forgotten to send me the letter!) they also forgot to send me another letter a couple of weeks after that saying I was to become a captain (I found out from my roster which had Command course written all over it - but I really didnt mind!
A few months of hard work, which seemed to go all to fast and it was time for the sim course (- just a few days with no real chance to repeat anything - so it had to be right first time!)
7 line training flights later and I was told I would be doing my final line check the next day, About the most nervous I have ever felt to date, that is until the next day, when I operated the AC as captain with a regular FO for the first time!
jan 2011 - typing on PPRUNE, hoping that the company keeps going for another year or so until I can get a jet job!