I recall Mesaba (or was it Express I ?) had a street captain program into their SF3's in the late 90's, I believe. I knew several Eagle F/O's who left and took a shot at it. They were permanent reserve and senior F/O's went ahead of them to better reserve schedules or straight to holding a line when they upgraded. Unfortunately, since they were very close to the bottom of the seniority list, when furlough time came around less than a year later, they were among the first to end up on the street, while the senior F/O's that leap-frogged them went back to F/O.

It has its risks and may or may not pay off.