aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...

, the first officer (FO), also called co-pilot, is the

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

who is second-in-command of the

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...

to the

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

, who is the legal commander. In the event of incapacitation of the captain, the first officer will assume command of the aircraft. Control of the aircraft is normally shared equally between the first officer and the captain, with one pilot normally designated the "

pilot flying In commercial aviation with a two-person flight crew, the pilot flying (PF) is the pilot operating the flight controls of the aircraft. The other pilot is referred to as the pilot monitoring (PM) or pilot not flying (PNF). Before a flight departs, ...

" and the other the "pilot not flying", or "pilot monitoring", for each flight. Even when the first officer is the flying pilot, however, the captain remains ultimately responsible for the aircraft, its passengers, and the crew. In typical day-to-day operations, the essential job tasks remain fairly equal. Traditionally, the first officer sits on the right-hand side of a

fixed-wing aircraft A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air flying machine, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using wings that generate lift caused by the aircraft's forward airspeed and the shape of the wings. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinc ...

right seat Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theo ...

") and the left-hand side of a

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

(the reason for this difference is related to, in many cases, the pilot flying being unable to release the right hand from the cyclic control to operate the instruments, thus they sit on the right side and do that with the left hand). Other airlines may designate the more senior of two first officers operating a long-haul sector together with a captain in an enlarged crew as the senior first officer. The senior first officer will then sit in the left seat when the captain takes a rest. Many

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines for ...

s promote by

seniority Seniority is the state of being older or placed in a higher position of status relative to another individual, group, or organization. For example, one employee may be senior to another either by role or rank (such as a CEO vice a manager), or by ...

only within their own company. As a consequence, an airline first officer may be older and/or have more flight experience than a captain, by virtue of having experience from other airlines or the military.

References

Bibliography

* Harris, Tom
How Airline Crews Work
HowStuffWorks.com website, June 14, 2001. Retrieved September 2, 2014. * Smith, Patrick
Patrick Smith's Ask The Pilot: When a Pilot Dies in Flight
AskThePilot.com website, 2013, which in turn cites: *Smith, Patrick
Cockpit Confidential: Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel: Questions, Answers, and Reflections
Sourcebooks, 2013, , .
''Flying the World in Clipper Ships''
at flightjournal.com, 2007. {{commercial air travel, state=collapsed Titles Occupations in aviation

See also

References

Bibliography