Lord Spandex-Masher. You asked the question, 'Are you really saing that Bloggs made it through Linton, Valley, and the OCU without basic talent?' Alas, yes from time to time. Generally speaking, the RAF fast jet training system had sufficient hurdles along the way to prevent that happening, as you have alluded to. However the RAF also suffered that quaint failing of always looking after 'good chaps' whose face fitted, and marginal people who were 'great to have around' could be given a significantly longer piece of rope than their talents merited. So therefore, yes, people could reach frontline squadrons without the fundamental skills and talents to be there. In such cases the final hurdle bagged them and they never got combat ready. If you are ex-RAF, you may possibly recognise the phenomenon and realise what a terrible tragedy such a situation was.
Why, indeed, would an experienced Airbus pilot pay CTC? The answer, as you rightly say, is that he should not. The Harrier pilot, on the other hand, would have to pay the training organisation because he cannot fly an Airbus. My point is that there is no commercial reason for exempting him from that cost if you're going to charge less experienced pilots for that rating.
At no point have I extolled the virtues of CTC. What I have said, is that they have a genuine and credible selection system, whether you like the product or not, and for any young person to become a pilot they are clearly the mechanism that currently exists by which their ambition will be fulfilled.
Doug the Head - how marvellous to read your thoughts once more. I had feared for your safety because your silence had been so great. I thought that perhaps in a moment of despair at being forced to work for the world's worst employer you may have shuffled off this mortal coil. Mercifully, however, you're still with us and all is not lost!
On one level, you make some very good points. I even have to agree with you regarding the oversupply of cadets. It is a somewhat larger leap of faith for me to accept that I am personally responsible for the situation, but that is probably just a character flaw. I do, however, have a number of difficulties with your suppositions. The first is that you or I can have any control over how many young people want to be pilots and what lengths they are willing to go to in order to become one. You were doing so well in being convincing until you could resist the personal insults no longer and assume I must be trying to get some retirement work with CTC. I am in my early 50s, so it is probably a bit too soon to start feathering my own nest just yet. Also, just to clarify the issue of my own son becoming a pilot is purely theoretical as he has no interest in doing so because he sees his Dad working far too hard!
Ezy - if, as your post suggests, you fly every day with cadet pilots who cannot land the aircraft you are either the most unfortunate man in aviation or the training system has got it wrong. I think it is unfair to many of those cadets to suggest that none of them can land the aircraft safely. My personal experience is the vast majority of those cadets are good people and are properly trained. Yes, they lack experience but you cannot gain experience except by flying. There lies the balance. The 'ridiculous' SOPs you referred to presumably relates to the wind call out with Flaps One selection. I think we can safely say that procedural change has not been the most popular in the company's history! Every new pilot is vulnerable to error near the ground and our cadets are no exception. I come back to my original argument that the real problem is not the individual cadets but the sheer number of them. I also totally disagree with the effective policy of not recruiting experienced pilots. We have, however, recently taken in a number of experienced Airbus pilots. What we have not done is take experienced pilots without type ratings from elsewhere, and I cannot in all honesty support that policy.