History repeats itself. Once upon a time, in the last really serious bit of trouble, some twenty five years ago, if my failing memory serves me right, a B.E.A. Trident was doing circuits at Prestwick. This was a batch of ex Hamble cadets being checked out. The call came from London: "Scrub!" The training captain pleaded "Look, I've got this bloke in the seat who needs one more circuit to get checked out. Please give me one more circuit and at least the poor guy's got the type on his licence!" You can guess the response.
No, I wasn't that unfortunate young man. I don't know if he ever kept the faith and eventually made it, but hundreds of others did. Their careers spiralled off into all sorts of directions: Air Anglia, Dan-Air, Britannia, Monarch, Air Europe, Orion, Cathay, Caledonian and finally, incredibly, British Airways.
Us old "grey beards" have seen it all before. Some of us more than once. This time around, providing some madman doesn't blow up the planet, I'm still optimistic, as you have to be in this lark anyway.
Good luck!
[ 22 September 2001: Message edited by: Georgeablelovehowindia ]