Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineer Pilot and navigate the flight of fixed-wing aircraft, usually on scheduled air carrier routes, for the transport of passengers and cargo. Requires Federal Air Transport certificate and rating for specific aircraft type used. Includes regional, national, and international airline pilots and flight instructors of airline pilots.
Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineer is Also Know as
In different settings, Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineer is titled as
- Airbus Captain
- Airline Captain
- Airline Pilot
- Captain
- Check Airman
- Co-Pilot
- Commercial Airline Pilot
- First Officer
- Line Pilot
- Pilot
Education and Training of Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineer
Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineer is categorized in Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineer
A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.
Education Required for Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineer
Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.
Degrees Related to Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineer
- Bachelor in Airline/Commercial/Professional Pilot and Flight C
- Associate Degree Courses in Airline/Commercial/Professional Pilot and Flight C
- Masters Degree Courses in Airline/Commercial/Professional Pilot and Flight C
- Bachelor in Flight Instructor
- Associate Degree Courses in Flight Instructor
- Masters Degree Courses in Flight Instructor
Training Required for Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineer
Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineer in different industries are
- Commercial Pilots
- Airfield Operations Specialists
- Air Traffic Controllers
- Aircraft Service Attendants
- Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels
- Aviation Inspectors
- Aircraft Mechanics and Service Technicians
- Locomotive Engineers
- Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors
- First-Line Supervisors of Passenger Attendants
- Flight Attendants
- Avionics Technicians
- Ship Engineers
- Railroad Conductors and Yardmasters
- Railroad Brake, Signal, and Switch Operators and Locomotive Firers
- Aerospace Engineering and Operations Technologists and Technicians
- Motorboat Operators
- Transportation Inspectors
- Aerospace Engineers
- Sailors and Marine Oilers
What Do Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineer do?
- Use instrumentation to guide flights when visibility is poor.
- Respond to and report in-flight emergencies and malfunctions.
- Work as part of a flight team with other crew members, especially during takeoffs and landings.
- Contact control towers for takeoff clearances, arrival instructions, and other information, using radio equipment.
- Steer aircraft along planned routes, using autopilot and flight management computers.
- Monitor gauges, warning devices, and control panels to verify aircraft performance and to regulate engine speed.
- Start engines, operate controls, and pilot airplanes to transport passengers, mail, or freight, adhering to flight plans, regulations, and procedures.
- Inspect aircraft for defects and malfunctions, according to pre-flight checklists.
- Check passenger and cargo distributions and fuel amounts to ensure that weight and balance specifications are met.
- Monitor engine operation, fuel consumption, and functioning of aircraft systems during flights.
- Confer with flight dispatchers and weather forecasters to keep abreast of flight conditions.
- Coordinate flight activities with ground crews and air traffic control and inform crew members of flight and test procedures.
- Order changes in fuel supplies, loads, routes, or schedules to ensure safety of flights.
- Choose routes, altitudes, and speeds that will provide the fastest, safest, and smoothest flights.
- Direct activities of aircraft crews during flights.
- Brief crews about flight details, such as destinations, duties, and responsibilities.
- Record in log books information, such as flight times, distances flown, and fuel consumption.
- Make announcements regarding flights, using public address systems.
- File instrument flight plans with air traffic control to ensure that flights are coordinated with other air traffic.
- Perform minor maintenance work, or arrange for major maintenance.
- Instruct other pilots and student pilots in aircraft operations and the principles of flight.
- Conduct in-flight tests and evaluations at specified altitudes and in all types of weather to determine the receptivity and other characteristics of equipment and systems.
- Evaluate other pilots or pilot-license applicants for proficiency.
- Load smaller aircraft, handling passenger luggage and supervising refueling.
- Plan and formulate flight activities and test schedules and prepare flight evaluation reports.
- Test and evaluate the performance of new aircraft.
Qualities of Good Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineer
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Tools Used by Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineer
- Aileron trim switches
- Airborne collision avoidance systems ACAS
- Aircraft data loaders
- Anti-skid control systems
- Attitude heading reference systems AHRS
- Autobrakes
- Automatic direction finder ADF radio systems
- Automatic landing systems
- Autopilot systems
- Brake management systems
- Brake pedals
- Cockpit displays of traffic information CDTI
- Continuous flow emergency oxygen systems
- Control display units CDU
- Control wheels
- Data load selectors
- Desktop computers
- Digital communications display units DCDU
- Diluter demand emergency oxygen systems
- Distance measuring equipment DME
- Electric trim switches
- Electronic flight instrument systems EFIS
- Emergency exit slides
- Emergency life rafts
- Engine anti-ice systems
- Equipment cooling controls
- Fire extinguishers
- Fire suppression and control systems
- Flaps control levers
- Flight database systems
- Fuel control systems
- Global positioning system GPS devices
- Ground proximity warning systems GPWS
- Head-up guidance systems HGS
- High-frequency HF radio communication systems
- Hydraulic actuators
- Hydraulic control systems
- Hydraulic pressure regulators
- Inertial navigation systems INS
- Instrument landing system ILS glideslope receivers
- Instrument landing system ILS localizers
- Landing gear control systems
- Long range navigation LORAN-C systems
- Manual trim wheels
- Microwave landing systems MLS
- Navigation mode selectors
- Nondirectional radio beacon markers
- Nosewheel steering systems
- Notebook computers
- On-board intercom systems
- Passenger oxygen control systems
- Personal digital assistants PDA
- Pneumatics systems
- Point plotters
- Power generation and distribution control systems
- Pressure demand emergency oxygen systems
- Pressurization control systems
- Radio frequency-based navigation and guidance systems
- Recirculation control systems
- Rudder pedals
- Rudder trim knobs
- Satellite-based navigation and guidance systems
- Transponder landing systems TLS
- Ultra high frequency UHF radio communication systems
- Very high frequency omnidirectional range VOR systems
- Very high frequency VHF direction finders
- Very high frequency VHF radio communication systems
- Windscreen ice control systems
- Wing anti-ice systems
- Yaw damper systems
Technology Skills required for Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineer
- AeroPlanner
- Airline Pilots Daily Aviation Log PPC
- AirSmith FlightPrompt
- CoPilot Flight Planning & E6B
- doXstor Flight Level Logbook
- Electronic aircraft information databases
- IFT-Pro
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Microsoft Visio
- Microsoft Word
- MJICCS PilotLog
- Navzilla
- Nimblefeet Technologies Captain's Keeper
- Notam Development Group Airport Insight
- Pilot Navigator Software Load Balance
- Polaris Microsystems AeroLog Pro
- Polaris Microsystems CharterLog
- RMS Technology Flitesoft
- SBS International Maestro Suite
- Skylog Services Skylog Pro