It got better after that, a pilots strike had just finished, pilots were scarce and the PM at the time reckoned that pilots were only glorified bus drivers. Any idiot with a Cpl could get a job. One of the majors took one look at my log book with Chieftain time and I got a command gig in a 747. Not long after that I got my CIR, married a hostie, won Tatts, retired and brought a Super Cub and a rural spread.
Sure has been good to me this flying caper, I recommend it to all the kids I meet.
Hey Bobby . . . slow down boy . . .. . if you think you had a good start . . .. .you're no match for my mate Merv. Merv did about 2.000hrs chisel charter on a PPL all round the SW Pacific, then in Raratonga was seduced by a billonairess with a Turbo Goose who had Merv fly her back home to the Bahamas where she had him as her toy boy for a year. Fortunately for Merv a bloke with even more cojones than he the trifle exhausted arrived at their base in an R2600 re-engined Cat fitted out like a luxury yacht and suggested to Gladys that she join him on an expedition to the Galapagos I think it was. So Merv packed up his kit and did an aerial hitch-hike to San Diego where the last I heard of him he was polling one of those Fairchild F227 Friendships round the night skies with a lot of serious partying down the back all of it in excess of 5,280 feet AMSL.