The role of the F/E
Hi TCF, hope all is well with you. As a fellow former three man crew member, often the oldest as the F/E, I would be very pleased to see the re-introduction of the F/E. Most of the modern-day pilots would not have any understanding of what professional flight engineers contributed to the operation. We certainly, in most cases, added to the environment within the cockpit. The MEL was much thicker, not because we were smarter than the computers which monitor and/or control the various systems, but because we had more options open to us. As well, we were a third set of eyes able to contribute in the busy ATC environments. No realistic person could claim to be able to monitor systems more ably than computers do, because computers don't suffer fatigue as humans do. For many reasons I can think of I wish F/E's were still part of the crew, as I do believe we were a worthwhile element in the overall operation. Obviously the airline I worked for did, they paid us the same pay scale as the F/O.