Several people do indeed hold FAA powered-lift ratings. and I have seen the rating, so they are issued. The few I know of personally are all active-duty officers, though there are probably others who have worked on the V-22 and / or the AW609 at Bell/Boeing or AW.
Until the AW609 is certified, I would be willing to wager there will be no civil courses offered. And that's 3+ years away. That's not to say that I think that there isn't a civil course 'under development', but nobody's going to share that info until it's ready to be offered.
I'd further be willing to wager that the first civil certifications will go to pilots with several thousand hours in their logbooks, whether that be rotorcraft, airplane, or both. They'll work (and probably already do work) for the customers who have ordered the machines. Those lead customers will pay the freight for the first courses. That's how it works.
Since the contractor is Agusta-Westland and they operate in-house training, and they're in the helicopter business, they will probably promote training staff from within and perhaps augment that with former military pilots with tiltrotor experience as their initial instructional staff. The USMC found adding some additional ME airplane to the initial training syllabus was valuable, and they also discovered that experienced airplane pilots had and easier time with some of the skill sets than experienced helicopter pilots (and vice versa).
In the meantime, you probably should focus on putting a couple thousand hours in your logbook. Your first paying job will not likely be in the tiltrotor.
tott, I think you may be assuming our candidate is: American; young enough to be picked up for an officer accession program; qualified for same; and willing. Perhaps he is, and perhaps he isn't.
Last edited by Um... lifting...; 9th Oct 2014 at 21:06.