Throttle pusher,
The fact is the remaining Air Eng lot are getting old and new ones are not being trained.
As I see it there are a few options.
Extend the current Air Engs', assuming they want to.
Train new Air Engs', but what will they do after the retirement of the aircraft? Train techies for the role, but again what is their role after the job goes?
Convert Loadies/GEs/WSOP?
Convert pilots?
In terms of training risk and stress the best option is probably to extend the current crop, assuming they can/will. Failing this it would be to put current pilots into the seat. All the other options, and there will be different options to those I have come up with, incur more of a training burden and risk. They also present a problem in the future in terms of what to do with trained Air Engs'. In the long term the conversion of a Loady to Air Eng and then a reconversion back to Loady (they are going to have to do some sort of OCU) just puts more stress on the training system.
Pilots are in short supply, no doubt about that, but so are many other trades. In some cases though the shortages are on aircraft that have no need for an Air Eng. Some aircraft that do require an Air Eng have potentially some spare pilots due to the ability to provide only a limited number of that type. This is not always the case, but the reality is that some of our types are just not as serviceable as others, and yet have the same or similar manning.
As I said originally, putting pilots in the third seat is not ideal, but in terms of a short term option that can be managed internally by the squadrons I think it is worth looking at.