Only the Brits could redesign the Avro 748 (first flight June 1960) and call it an ‘Advanced’ turboprop……more like the legendary Stiff Records slogan, ‘reversing into tomorrow’.
But, hey, they are doing it again, using taxpayer’s money, to redesign the Comet (first flight July 1949), as the Nimrod Mk. 4….it’s enough to make you weep.

How about Lancaster PB972 or G-33-2 of Flight Refuelling?

A type rating with no hours as a line pilot won’t really help you. I feel it would be an expensive gamble. I have spoken to many a chief pilot regarding this matter and all of them said it was a waste of time unless you have hours on type.

Self funding your training is clearly a huge gamble, with a large expense and no certainty of employment. As I understand it, CTC select you for their scheme, rate you on a type (at your expense), and then ‘lease’ you to an airline for a period of time (the airline supplies the aircraft and line training) – when the period expires, the airline then decides whether to employ you permanently.
A rating without experience may well be pointless, but the CTC scheme seems to be an increasingly popular way into my airline.

Also I remember the Orion cabin crew unifroms and in winter the stewardess wore knee length brown leather boots with a big heel, very nice!!

At last, we agree on something!

The 737-200 which was the staple type of the charter carriers in the 80s was ideal fro this type of destination. It had the range to reach the canaries with full payload and was excellant at short fields. It could get in and out of the smallest holiday airports and because of its integral airstairs it was self-sufficient on the ground.

Hmm…a bit more rose tinted nostalgia from retroboy. I don’t think you will find many pilots missing the ‘range’ capability of the B732 (or ‘Scud’ as it is universally referred to – lots of noise, no range!).
The 732 was a very capable short hauler for the ITs, but a more problematic medium hauler. A trip to/from the Canaries/Eastern Med without a tech stop for fuel could never be guaranteed…..especially from the northern UK airports….NCL crews would joke that all Turkish holidays were twin centred with Ostend, due to the frequency of tech stops!
What tended to knacker take off performance at places like CFU was the 732’s poor obstacle clearance capabilities in the event of an engine failure (which has to be accounted for on every take off). I can recall sitting at CFU one hot day, struggling to come up with a regulated take off weight (using 17 with a tailwind,full power, packs off etc.) that would allow us a fighting chance of getting back to southern England without a tech stop, and watching an Air Two Bob 757 getting airborne off 35 (the most obstacle limited runway at CFU), with a full load, going direct to GLA – a certain message seemed obvious!
The airstairs and APU did make the 732 very self reliant, but its time had clearly passed as an IT aircraft about 15 years ago (and the avionics seemed to have more in common with the B17 than the B757, but that’s another story!)

My Travel are great

I’m sure the banks agree with you, especially considering their £910 million loss last year.

And they have a habit of sending engine oil into the air conditioning, still with Retro-boy’s love of the smell of fag ash, he should be in his element.