Isn't the point of the FITU (or whatever you call it) to teach about the handling characteristics and procedures for actually flying the jet (meridian/krock specific)?? A portion of the instructor syllabus is actually stick and rudder, the rest is how to actually teach another pilot how to do it all and common student mistakes (I almost died stories for validity). One sea tour complete WSO's do some flight instructing in a pretty busy environment on cruise, but with natops qualed pilots at the controls.
They used to waive lots of the syllabus for digital cockpit folks, there is indeed some overkill if those folks have to do every flight, thus some flights where NFOII's (instructor instructors) could possibly be utilized... but why not cut out those flights and pocket the $?
When a single seat dude shows up to his NA-x spin hop and has a double anchor dude in his back seat it will make for an interesting flight... Ive seen scarier departures, landings, passes and PA's from IP's than students (you know when to take the controls from the students, NFOIP's can't take the controls ever)...
Folks at CNATRA obviously think their smarter/funnier/faster than anyone in the trenches... stand by for fistycuffs in the FITU!
Are they NFO's coincidentally with appropriate civilian ratings? Technically, an NFO could have the appropriate civlian ratings and get a checkout in the plane.
