What would it take to turn a commercial airline pilot into a suborbital spacecraft pilot

[MB123]

Anyone got any ideas?

[G-pit]

A rocket engine and FAA approval?

j/k.

[Spiff]

Ask Will Whitehorn. He's actually doing it.

[Jim]

a trainer

[meiza]

Train in some aircraft whose performance could be tuned to the suborbital spacecraft at places, most notably the landing probably. Land some hot jet trainer with landing gear out and thrust at idle. Many times.
You'd also have to read up on rocket engineering and systems to be able to control the craft and solve problems.
You could try portions of the flight on a computer sim too, Orbiter, X-Plane, Flightgear...

[josh_simonson]

They'll have to do many test flights of the actual suborbital craft in order to certify it for commercial flight, the pilots will get experience in flying them during these tests.  They'll also work in simulators too most likely.

Depending on the craft there may not be much 'piloting' involved.  Anything that returns by parachute probably won't need much help, and VTOL craft will most likely be automated.  The pilot in those circumstances would be more as insurance against a major system malfunction, but commercial airline experience is probably not very applicable to vertical landing under rocket power, helicopter pilots may be more suited to that job.  All serious pilots have the competence to be able to learn how to do it though.

[MichaelF]

I doubt it'll be much of an issue, as there are enough bored/inactive NASA/RSA pilots (and other-agency or military Test Pilots) to saturate the market for the forseeable future.