Are flight engineers qualified to fly?

"Richard Riley" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 21 Jan 2007 23:57:59 +0100, Mxsmanic
wrote:

In older aircraft that require flight engineers, are these flight
engineers qualified to fly the aircraft in an emergency? If not, what
qualifications do they have? Do they have to be pilots (i.e.,
licensed)?

There is no regulatory requirement that they be pilots.

There used to be professional flight engineers that were not pilots.
As 3 seat airplanes phased out and pilots continued to retire at age
60 (FE's can fly till 65) most, if not all, FE's ended up being
retired captains.

Hmmm, on the other end of the age bracket is(was)n't there an age
requirement that the FE had to be 21 but the FO only had to be 18? I'm
harking back to the days when FE's were the norm aboard airliners.