With the end of Concorde in October it will mark the end of Flight Engineers within BOAC/BA after approximately 55years. Every long haul aircraft during that time with the exception of the Argonaut used a Flight Engineer, and their back ground was as a ground engineer rather than a pilot. This was the case in the USA until the introduction of Jets airliners in the late 50's , when the american pilots union persuaded the authorities there, that it would be safer if a pilot sat in the seat incase of food posioning [must have had some rough catering in those days
Now what did he do, well during flight he operated all the sysyems and normally the engines, aswell as being [ hopefully] the technical advisor to the Captain. With the advent of the jets within BOAC the F/E took on the role of monitoring the the navigation and operation of the aircraft aswell as reading all the checklists both normal and emergency. On the Bristol Britannia aircraft the F/E operated the throttles at all times even down to selecting reversre power and it was similar on the VC-10, where the F/E even had his set of throttles.
When the aircraft was on the ground the F/e used to do all the exterior checks and refuelling, aswell as liasioning with the ground engineers on technical matters. If the aircraft was at a abnormal airfield with no BOAC staff, he did it all on his own.
One little story about the VC-10 was on long trips when youngsters came to visit the flight deck the Captain would demonstrate how his voice could control the throttle movement, and after a while the younster would start talking to the throttle too. After a while they would leave suitably impressed as to what an advance aircraft the VC-10 was, but of coarse nobody took any notice of the F/E sitting in his corner moving his set of throttles which were linked to the pilots set .
Ah well those were the days
