enlight me, my european friends
Reading through your post seems you guys in Europe have a big issues with rosters and duty regulations in general. i know its not really the european way - but maybe you should consider joining a union or found one to start with. Looking at what Netjets Pilots in the US have done and achieved by having a union it seems more then logical that you guys should have one as well.
but also: why don't you consider going expatriate the whole yard. if you stay abroad for 3 or 4 weeks then why not move there (nobody can tell me that they fly every day out of this duty period. There are a lot of my friends from the US or Australia including NZ who did that. They just moved to where ever day have a plane. A lot of them seem to be absolutely fine with this.
I am speaking out of personal experience, as I have lived with my family in different countries and mostly found my emlpoyers more then generous when they where confronted with that idea. some even increased my salary as they did not had to cover for tickets and on top of it - its all taxfree and legal (at least in this part of the world)
well, keep on going - sure you will get there
CH