Nooby, you are correct again - engineers should be paid more than the bonehead sitting in the cockpit!
Another example to highlight my agreement with your reasoning - years ago a plumber visited my friends place & charged him $80/hr to get in & clean his septic tank. An exhorbitant rate at that time, but I didn't begrudge him a cent as I figured he was earning every bit of it. I certainly wouldn't have done the job for twice that rate!
The resource sector pay low skilled workers so well because if they don't they won't get the workers, not many people really want to live on a rig & do that **** but the money attracts them. It's an unfortunate fact of life that this is not the case for most pilots, we do it because we want to & therefore companies don't have to pay disproportionate salaries to attract workers.
Therein lies the basis of this discussion - I understand why we are paid less, I just don't think it is fair.