> When I read these threads I thank god I'm in the US
+1 for this. I lived for 38 years in England, then 10 years in France. I loved the idea of learning to fly but it was too expensive and too impractical. Then I moved to the US and had my PPL in less than a year. It's much cheaper here for sure, but also much more accessible and most of all, the regulation is much more sensible.
Nine exams! That's crazy! There's one one-hour FAA written test for PPL, and another one for CPL. That's it. No specific requirement for ground school, if (like me) you prefer to sit at home and read books, that's fine, whatever works. Is anyone really going to argue that US pilots are less safe because they haven't done all these exams?
My friends in the flight training business here say they are as busy as ever. Though there are definitely fewer aircraft on my home field (Palo Alto, near San Francisco). Most training aircraft are pre-1986 172s, with a sprinkling of PA28s, newer Cessnas, and the odd SR20. So that is much the same as UK.