Originally Posted by
FlyingSlowly
I remain genuinely curious about what others think will transpire with career progression from 250 to 1500 hours...looking a few years down the road.
Career progression doesn't end at 1,500 hours, nor does it begin there. It's an arbitrary point where, if one meets a number of other qualifications and requirements, one may met a minimum qualification. 250 hours applies only if one seeks a commercial under Part 61, and hasn't elected to take a 141 course.
The real question then isn't one of career progression, but the ability to get students by flight instructors, as indicated by the baited question of your thread title and the flawed statistics you used as the basis for the thread. You don't want to know about career progression, but to start an argument that's tilted and biased from the get-go. A number of posters fell for it, too, and our own skyhigh practically frothed at the mouth. Unfortunately, it's all for naught, because the premise is based on a lie.
Your thread premise exists on the basis of the number of "active" instructor certificates as of two years ago, compared to the number of private pilot certificates issued. Making a comparison between the two is ridiculous, for numerous reasons, beginning with the fact that few of those "active" instructors are actually "active," and continuing from there. Your insinuation in the title of the thread that there is any "scheme" at all, let alone to title it with such misleading an attribute as a "pyramid scheme" put the crowning cherry on the deception.
I know you're not asking about instructing; that's obvious. You've just made a statement that it's not about you, and it's really about career progression. So you say. Nonetheless, when skyhigh fell into hour trap and echoed what you wanted to hear, you did say he was on topic.
There are enough students, else there wouldn't be instructors employed to teach them. Flight schools aren't charity services, and don't hire untold numbers of instructors on the basis of income to the business which doesn't exist.
There are avenues for employment other than instructing at an early inexperienced stage in one's career.
No one owes the student a job upon completion of flight training, nor is the fledgling instructor owed students.
To view "career progression" as the initial experience up to 1,500 hours is shortsighted, and nearly assumes that at 1,500 hours the career boy has it made. In fact, he may be instructing well past that time, or before or after flying boxes, banners, or a number of other avenues.