Hell, I had captains tell me "flight mech" to supervise new FE's. Never forget picking up this one guy, first flight. He came from the commuters did not make the cut in the sim and got an offer to fly sideways. As we pulled up to our DC10-30 he blurted out, damb these things are big when you get close to them.
I do miss our old PFE's, if we got short on manpower we could send them out on their own, rock solid guys. I also miss flying with the retired captains, those guys were a different breed.