I'll try to help.
In another of your posts you said that you would not recommend EK for young guys in the U.S. I was wondering what makes you say that.
I'm not sure he said that, but I would agree with the thought. EK is a good deal for 5-7 years. After that, it's pretty tough to be so far from home and you start to worry about your kids not having enough of their home culture. If you're 31, that'd mean you'd probably be pretty restless when you're still only in your late '30s. Having said that, the advantage of being young is that you can afford to wait the anticipated 5+ year time frame to upgrade.
Are the families that live there supportive of each other? Are there get togethers, bbq's etc.?
Yes. We probably have a better social life here than we did back home. People do tend to stick to their own nationalities, but it's also nice to branch out a bit and hang out with people from other places. Hell, we even occasionally socialize with Americans!
Are the schedules the typical 4-5 days on 2-3 off that we have at U.S. regional airlines?
No. There's everything from 3 hour pairings to 11 day ones. There's no way to avoid the fact that you have to fly at night - a lot. On the Bus, it's very rare to do a complete trip in daylight.
If you live in the company provided housing and school is reimbursed, what are the other expenses that would make this difficult?
I've written this before, but I'll summarize again. The first year, you have all kinds of "settling in" expenses. You're not likely to save money. After that, without kids, you should be able to save. However, you do spend money on stuff that you wouldn't back home. For example, long distance calls, travel back and forth, 'other travel' and 'creature comforts' that you're going to want to make the "lifestyle" here what you came for. That would be things such as a golf membership.
Hope this helps,
BC