SD,
Your remark re FD
JS time moves me to make a point here, not just to you personally but to the majority of non-pilots.
Sitting looking is nothing like doing the job. I have flown as Systems Panel Operator and FO on the TriStar. It is an absolute piece of wee-wee to sit there and observe small errors taking place
Even some flight engineers who, of course, know the machine technically and, by training and/or observation, understand the aerodynamics and navigation think it's a piece of cake. In one airline, we had a Flight Engineer Entry Pilot Scheme for our younger redundant FEs. A few of the guys had the grace to admit that, once you're in the hot seat, it's nothing like as easy as it seems from the back.
I can assure you that my RAF training was the most difficult thing I'd ever done, followed, some way behind, by the Cathay command course.
One of the slightly confusing areas is that the USA dispatcher's responsibilities are rather different from most of the rest of the world. I recollect falling foul of a rather silly woman in Tampa who went so far as to complain to my boss in the UK about my method of load and balance calculation. She saw a poor old 60+ two bar FO but didn't realise that a year before, he'd been a B747 captain.
I don't approve of name calling.
p.s. who's going to be first to spot the hypocrisy?