Friend of mine was a Licenced Engineer, applied and was accepted as a Flight Eng by a company on Tristars or DC10's, I forget which, his course was as said about 2 weeks......... a year after joining them they phased out the Dinosaurs and replaced them with None Flight Engineer type Aircraft..... To his delight they said they would like to sponsor him through his ATPL's and now he flies with them as Co Pilot.