In the late eighties, on a flight from Gatwick to Miami, a passenger asked to visit the flight-deck. He showed a lot of interest in the operation and introduced himself as the owner of Agro - the operator of the three C-97s based at Miami.
He talked about his airline and explained that he had problems obtaining crews with any heavy piston-engine experience - particularly flight-engineers, upon whom the care and well-being of the engines depended.
I told him that I'd got several thousand hours on piston engined aircraft and asked his terms and conditions...............as one would !
He responded ,that as an experienced flight-engineer I'd get the same as a captain..............$50 an hour. I said those were far better expenses and allowances than I was getting, but what about the salary ?
"That IS the salary !" and then adding, "The aircraft operate mainly to and from Florida and Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela where there's plenty of opportunities for crews to do a bit of "importing/ exporting for themselves !" Nudge-Nudge-Wink-Wink.
Much as I might have enjoyed the operation of a C-97 around South America I declined the offer and remained a comparatively boring UK based 747 flight-engineer !
(A month or two later, one of them crashed in Mexico city. Apparently some life-stock broke loose on the approach and completely upset the CofG.)