Why any talk about what's available for the RHS??
Whilst desirable to have a certain standard you CAN - push comes to shove - have the literal "trained monkey" and ops can go on.
LHS is where the legal buck stops so THAT's where the question arises...how low can you go with the matrix of components (hours/experience, training, CRM exposure, multi crew ops etc etc) for the PIC in the LHS....accompanied by their trained monkey??
Always amuses me when people talk about the "pilot shortage", the real talk has to be about the "command shortage" because THAT's when the potential to ground aircraft becomes real.
In the perfect world all crew would be trained to the highest standards (initial and recurrent) but that costs $$$$ so lets at least talk in context of the commercial reality as espoused by the dark forces of commercial reality!
Sadly not the way it should be - but the way it is.
Cheers.
