They'll make you buy your type if you don't already have one too. Shelling out several grand and then spending 6 to 8 months in training without being able to come home seems like quite a sacrafice to me. OTOH pay does look pretty good. I'm about to be furloughed myself and I've been spending quite a bit of time looking into all these contracts and reading everything I can find about it as well as hearing guys like Typhoon talk about it. We're lucky to have guys like him give us the real deal. It may be a good deal for some but not for everyone. To me the whole contract overseas flying seems to be a better deal for a captain rather than an FO. From what I can tell and hear, you may not be able to upgrade at the end of your 5 year contract or ever. Like Typhoon said, to much "playing the game" going on. I've heard things like, micro-manager captains, not letting the fo's fly. There's no way in hell I could work with someone like that for a 9-12 hr flt. Like I said, all this contract stuff seems better fitted for a captain with time on type. But that's just my opinion.