Co-pilot was a Gatwick based organisation that produced a monthly newsletter about which airlines were hiring etc. I can't find a link on the web to them though which is a bit worrying... IPA is the Independent Pilots Association for all those that have asked via email.. .. .On the matter of queues. Its only a phrase, but I think a useful one.. .. .You are an average pilot. Most of the other people applying with your experience will also be average like yourself. You may think you have some advantage in experience, character or history. In fact this is unlikely.. .. .Therefore I feel you are in a queue in so much as your CV is in a pile of - say - 800 odd. You have no real reason, being an average low time pilot, to be at the top or indeed the bottom of that pile. The size of the pile (queue in my terms) is of direct interest to you and it was this that I was trying to quantify.. .. .I am quite disspassionate about the whole thing. I always assumed things would take longer, cost more and work out worse than they actually did for me. I suggest you do the same regardless of a strong spirit of determination. . .. .The situation at the moment is terrible. Nothing has moved for 6 months job wise and nothing will for another 6 months. That means that there is an entire years worth of new low time pilots out there chasing every job. That is a disaster for the job hunter compared to pre-Sept11. There is no use pretending otherwise. I can make all the encouraging noises you like but it doesn't change the facts. Were someone to turn my clock back a couple of years I would want to hear the realistic disspassionate number driven analysis I tried here to provide. Thats why I provided it. Its the kind of thing I would have like to have read. . .. .I do remember what its like - my Instrument Rating is less than two and half years old.... .. .All I have said is booking a CPL course or an Instument Rating is not a good idea right now in my opinion. A PPL, an ATPL correspondence course or some hours building is fine.. .. .I think sometimes that you need to know some people with all the licenses and ratings who can't find a job. In fact can't get an interview. In fact can't get an airline to acknowledge a letter or even enter them into their records. I know people like that at the moment. Good people. Clever, witty, personable and talented people. People you'd like to go for a pint with. People who would make great airline pilots. When you then see new people come along in a dang hurry to spend £50,000 in the expectation of beating them to a job you gain a new perspective on things.... .. .Not that any of this is going to stop anyone. Nor should it.. .. .WWW