Am not sure what it is with the jet thingy,(have to agree with air med) a lot of people seem to think you need to be a space shuttle driver just to fly a small corporate jet. I believe & always will that a jet is far simpler to handle/manage than a B200 flown as SP. I can recall the first time I got into a turbo prop after having ever flown PA31's etc & thought whoaaa nelly, this 250 kts is fast, real fast, now it's like I'm flying a C150!
In fact you could put any fairly confident pilot who has flown Chieftans/Barons etc into a simple 'slowtation' tell him the basic speeds & close the door to watch him/her fly at least a wide circuit.
The RFDS pilots would be perfect choices for a jet operation, Capt's as well. Any basic ATPL holder could easily handle a small jet, so lets not confuse the real issue here of why those poor buggers (RFDS drivers) aren't going to crew the jet, it's got a lot more to do with other influences who most likely are not directly involved in aviation as is often the case.
The size of this country obviously needs several med jets to compliment the turbo props for long distant tasks (there are a few now anyway in pvt hands doing med work) turbo props are too slow in some case but to put it simply we can't afford them unless they are funded by big business & the way our economy is going we might be lucky to see big business let us play with a 'van'!
I'd bet my next wage (well almost) that if the RFDS sections ALL sections had jets as well in their fleet along with new B200's you wouldn't see some guys breaking their necks to go fly a boring 'bus' on RPT.
Wmk2