In response to captain.weird
I am lucky in the sense that I am young (24) free and single. I know that it makes the situation easier as it makes the burden less but I would be lying if I said it was easy for my family to stomach. Ofcourse I sat there and explained the situation and how things are going, they are not from a aviation background and this can make the explanation difficult as people have a hard time swallowing any form of idea that you would pay for a job, however this is mirrored in society today with people leaving university with degrees in Law and working in a fast food restaurant, almost criminal
I was lucky on the other hand my uncle has experience in the industry and suggested I take what's on offer as the money was available and unlike a bank I did not have to worry about interest. Just as long as they get it back which is a massive boost, when you do these things its not about the financial implication but also the financial stress, how does one perform when borrowing the money and the chance you fail(heaven forbid it) but its a situation you have to be prepared for. Boils down to sacrifices to get where you want to be, women went on hold for me for a while and having a JAA license it means I still have to make the annual trip back to europe for license validation which helps.
Olie23 Its the world we live in, cant do a dorothy, click our heals and be back in Kansas being peachy, if turbulence is the buzz word of our time we have to get use to it. Whats worse though, shedding out for the ATPL getting into a load of debt and having to work full time and forgo flying. Or just using what you have available, granted individual factors plays a part. My view is simply take the opportunity you are given provided of course you can afford it and you take into account contingency. After all you join a P2F scheme and the belief is a bunch of cowboys who cant fly, have the attitude of a dead toad and think they can walk onto a flight deck. I assure you this is not the case. For example you arrive here and get the standard briefings with the company regarding the rules and regulations, classes on the SOPS and you have 2 training sorties or standardisation simulators. You then have a company check which is a hell of a lot more gruelling then the LST. Its roughly a 40% pass rate as unfortunately what Desert Budgie says holds true, there are plenty of those characters that cant fly with money out here.
What I will say about Indonesia is having been here only a couple of months I am surprised by the people showing up with just a forzen ATPL or equivalent and knocking on a door and getting offered something by ways of pay for a tr or some people going to work straight onto a caravan. I am not encouragin or condoning P2F schemes, as mentioned it was the option for me and I took it anyone else has to decide themselves if it is the right move for them and there are no alternatives to the individual. It was when my alternatives where or seemed exhausted did I take the decision to spend more money. I love flying and its all I ever wanted to do, the cliche of the bug we all catch on our first ever flights, to what extremes people go through to make it a reality are there own choices. There will always be a ethical debate on the subject which is already ethically flawed. Again we are victims of the world we live in and we need to do our best to get where we need to be, some of us will moan and groan about it, but really you have to play the cards were dealt.