Dave Ishall
The MR2 world has never understood a/c command and continues to balls up this important issue by endowing Navigators and AEOs with a completely misplaced sense of captaincy.
Maybe the Maritime community (MR2, RN) has it right, afterall we live in a task orientated organisation. Backend captains in the RAF date back to the 'Battle of the Atlantic' and were introduced by a pilot, Gp Capt Dickie Richardson, who realised that the pilot had minimal input to the mission and to quote:
"The pilot had been little more than a helmsman, though he carried the prestige of Captaincy".
The myth of the pilot being the only one to understand the F700 is false, by the time any Navs reach Captaincy they will have more experience than the 1st Pilot you advocate signs as Captain. They will also receive training on the F700 as part of the 'Captains Course'.
Jump off your soapbox (fall if you have to), and stop over inflating the importance of a Pilot Captain. I have worked with good Pilot Captains and some very poor ones. Let the best person for the job do it and that comes with experience not 2-wings.
As an aside, the first Nav Captain was a Flt Lt Bob Irving, who had a distinguished wartime career, earning a DFC and Bar. Post WW2 he became more famous as an orchestra conductor and film music composer - better known as Robert Augustine Irving.
Ex-Nav Captain