I didn't see any other threads talking about this...

Why doesn't taking the Squadron Leader specialization give you access to Leadership as a career skill? It gives you Gunnery, Mechanics, and both Piloting skills. I have no problem at all with Gunnery and Piloting, but Mechanics? It makes a ton more sense to me for Squadron Leader's specialization skills to include Leadership, rather than Mechanics. I just can't understand why it's designed this way. It makes a lot of sense to me for a character to be an Ace and then become a Squadron Leader, gaining access to Leadership as a skill by doing so.

I'm just curious what people think about that.

In WWII, most squadron leaders became squadron leaders by virtue of surviving longer than anyone else. They didn't get sent to OCS, there wasn't time. If you want to be a trained leader, take the Commander Career, and you will have gone through the training course.

I'm AFB at the moment; doesn't the career give you Leadership as a class skill?

The career does, but if you buy it out of career (because he started as an ace) it would not.

It does kinda defy logic but in this case it would be better to take Squadron Leader first, then Pilot, to get the Leadership skill.

I'm going to say it was for balance and variety within the career. Because it's a career skill if it's also a Spec skill then PC's can start with 2 free ranks quite easily - that probably doesn't reflect the broad skill nature of a Squadron Leader. Only 2 of the 6 Commander specs actually have leadership.

The other consideration to take into account is that a character who is just starting is definitely not what their specialisation is called. It really means that they are on the way to being that thing or are gifted in areas relevant to that specialisation