It's not always the pilot who doesn't speak..... you put a 13 y/o cadet in a cockpit with an adult who they most likely have never met before, the cadt is nervous about their flight... Speaking to the boys at my AEF, sometimes they have to try real real hard to get the cadets to engage. Works both ways.
I've also had an OC AEF who flew me and was, to put it mildly quite rude and hardly spoke. Didn't learn much on that trip. He was an exception to the rule however.
Just out of interest - do AEF pilots receive pay for their time or is it purely voluntary?