Apologies for the thread drift, I did forget to mention in my original post that the likely reason the AFAP weren't at the table is because they would have pointed out the experience/skill set required to do the job, therefore the offer wasn't appropriate. ie Cobham didn't want that answer so they didn't bother asking the appropriate people the question. And then you shake the tree to see what falls out.
From what I've seen of that industry the chances of them asking for assistance is pretty much zero, too many egos involved, telling their bossess they could do it cheaper than the other guys. Buy a sim, plagerise the type rating syllabus from Flght Safety, it's not difficult at all. Except that flying a 604 is vastly different that a Dash 8, big time. That's in straight and level flight, and approaches, let alone low level over water.
Airline boys coming home. I've seen quite a few of these coming home and into the corporate world, they last about six months. Not because of their skills and experience, but they can't cope with the additional requirements of the job, which includes getting the toilet serviced, manually filling the water system. loading the catering, buying the catering, organising visas etc etc etc. All those things have been done for them for years on end. Nothing against them at all, it's just a different world.