I acknowledge that for many readers it is already too late to delay the critical CPL and IR modules. For those job hunting at the moment I feel desperately sorry. There are several self sponsored AND ex-airline cadet guys out there that I have trained myself that are looking. It is very depressing to talk to them about stacking shelves and answering telephones when they worked so hard to get their licenses. They followed all the right advice, trained hard and well, and now they work in Tescos. Its very harsh. I often think that if I ever spawn a WWW-Junior I won't encourage him/her to get into aviation. A stable, lucrative and more social profession can be had for less money, less time and less risk. Earn enough to have a good share in something rather fun (I'll do the checkrides as crusty old grandpa Welshman!) and have a happier life and enjoy flying every time you feel like it.. .. .Getting back to topic.. .. .You will be at an advantage at your Sim assessment and at your interview if you did your IR within the last 6 months. Ideally you pass your IR last week, take the MCC this week and next week you have your first couple of interviews lined up.. .. .Looking at the timeline then one would perhaps decide that interviews might be becoming more readily available in Autumn 2004. You can work back 13months for the integrated and perhaps 18 months for the Modular from that target and arrive at a start date.. .. .Peter Moxhams article in Flyer was quite well balanced. I wrote and scolded them for not mentioning this forum and they apologised. In fact there is a bigger PPRuNe related article coming to Flyer in the future.... .. .I urge all Wannabes to join the IPA and subscribe to Co-pilot. Student membership of Balpa might be useful but less so than the first two. A swathe of info is available from these subscriptions.. .. .Nobody seems to think the industry has anything other than an expanding future. There will doubtless be a "shortage" in future years. As ever it will be marginal, limited and very short lived. But it IS all cyclical it HAS all happened before and it surely WILL happen again. Hopefully next time you will all be comfortably up a seniority list somewhere.. .. .Timing has always been critical in this industry. I have met several pilots who went through the 1990 crash. One I can think of got a job with Air UK a fortnight before all recruiting stopped. He hung onto his RHS through the lean early 1990's, made the LHS then moved to the RHS of a 737 in the late 1990's. He became a captain as the millenium turned and now in his early 30's he is well set up for a long and fruitful aviation career. Another chap I know well had a job offer with what would recently have been called British Regional in 1990. The offer was withdrawn as troops poured into the Gulf. He went back to being a desk driver, scratched around GA ferrying old nails about for maintenance and doing a bit of instructing usually just for petrol money. He got his break in 1998 back into Regional on a Another Technical Problem <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> and after 2 years moved on to a well known airline on a jet. Hovering near the bottom of the seniority list as the Jets ploughed into the twin towers he was to find himself redundant by Christmas. He had a big mortgage on a new house, had just paid off his training debts from a decade ago and had little in the bank to tide him over. No option but to take a quick job showing people around houses on behalf of an estate agent chain. This is a chap with 2,500hrs ATPL and TP + EFIS Jet experience.. .. .The Air UK FO started his job a fortnight before the British Regional FO would have done. Two weeks. Two weeks that altered imeasurably the path of their careers. Get the timing right and it all seems so effortless. Get it wrong and the industry will do its level best to crush every bit of enthusiasm out of you.. .. .Don't kid yourself or anyone else either that LUCK has a significant part to play.. .. .As the curse goes, may you live in interesting times.. .. .Good luck,. .. .WWW