Surely the sole criteria should be whether you eat and breath aeroplanes. As to where individuals fit in - well.
Ex-RAF Air Radio Fitter on Vulcans and Lightnings, ARB qualified Avionics Eng. Flew with PanAm when operating IGS into Berlin - late sixties doing in-flight weather radar fixes. Then stint flying BN2A Islanders into non-existent strips in New Guinea. Non-existent ? You had to do a reccie before even thinking of putting down.
Then ran a maintenance facility at Rand A/P, Jo'burg with regular circuits and bumps at some of the more exotic mining camps around Southern Africa. All of this undertaken well before the norm became - sit in sharp end, switch on and settle back with coffee. <grin>
