That's sort of what I meant, the equivalent of the CAA (or FAA in America) a state backed training school, licensing centre and administration for pilots (mostly commercial) but from which a standing Merchant Navy (air and sea would be somewhat merged in a Galactic Empire) would be pooled and pilots could be conscripted into the Imperial Starfleet from.

The high officer class even in the Clone Wars seemed to be non cloned and the Empire is much bigger than the Republic (they have a tighter control on outer rim planets like Tatooine which was untouched by the Republic) even before the Seperatists started leaving so I'd imagine they would take talent from wherever they could find it.

On a seperate note, there was apparently a few lines in TPM script that could be put back in an edit using JasonN's blacked out, voice masked Sidious hologram.

When the Trade Federation are fretting about the Senate ambassadors being Jedi Sidious says "You seem to be more worried about the Jedi than you are about me" he then delivers a Force Choke to one of them and warns, "My reach is greater than any Jedi".