Finals,
It makes me laugh everytime some associates pay to fly and sstr with degrading terms and conditions.
Look at the options, pay 6 or 7 k for an instructors rating so you can earn 15 pounds per hour flight pay only. Then if you are really lucky you might land a turboprop job with an excessive four year bond and astarting salary of 20K. Sorry but paying for a rating is really no worse than an excessive bond with a low salary. The idea of bonding may sound more preferable to paying for a rating, but you will soon realise most bonds actually stop you form being able to make decent living.
I have said the many times before the biggest contributor to the popularity of pay to fly and sstr is the appalling pay of flying instructors, the ever increasing bond values amoung the turboprop companies.
Quite simply for many individuals a pay to fly scheme is financially more viable and then spending years in GA earning next to nothing.
Besides take the cost of an instructors rating, then the price of a few IR renewals, and you are already at half the expenditure of a type rating.
Spend 12 months earning 15 pounds per hour flight pay only and for a good many of you the pay cut between a year of full time instructing and your previous job will be more than the price of a rating.