Well I am sorry but I just cannot get excited about a free telephone briefing service. I still have to compile my own Wx and Notams at work in an airline and if I had never done so before because I relied on a telephone briefing I would be all the poorer pilot for it.
We all know the US is cheaper than the UK. Whether you be buying a car, a haircut or a flying course.
What I would say in specific terms of Wannabeism is that although your training costs more in the UK you can also earn more in the UK.
I spent all of 2000 training young men and women who were receiving free ATPL's with immediate jet type ratings at the end and a decent career in major airlines ahead of them. That just don't happen in the US of A...
Then there were the self sponsored guys who had raised their own £50,000. Assuming they got a job they would expect about $30,000 in the their first year on a turboprop. Thats an awful lot more than their US couunterparts would have gotten running bank cheques in the middle of the night in a BE55 (what - maybe $12,000). Some of the lucky ones went from school to RHS in 757's which would have taken 10 years of seniority building in the US to have achieved.
It would seem to me that market forces are very much at play here. In the US the barriers to carrier entry are lower (training is cheaper). But as a consequence more people enter the marketplace and drive down the price of labour.
Therefore if one were to compare the costs vs pay of an average airline pilot in the first decade of their respective US and UK careers one might well find that the UK pilot was actually better off.
Certainly this is the case with myself. One year instructing PPL, one year teaching commercially and then into a B737 with 1,500 piston hours. I certainly earn more than if I was in the US and spent one year instructing, one year running bank cheques/air taxi, two years turboprop ad hoc charter, 4 years regional turboprop FO, 2 years regional turboprop Captain, then finally Jet FO. Which I think is a likely career pattern.
Simply stating that you can get free weather briefs or a twin for the price of a single rather ignores the bigger picture.
Not that I have anything against training in the US. Even if it only serves to further undermine UK GA by doing so.
Cheers,
WWW