To the various laymen on these types of threads:
1) A copilot is roughly equivalent to a co-Captain, although there many exceptions to this generalization, depending on experience, airline, military squadron or company policies etc. Some corporate aviation dpts. (Part 91=general aviation) often allow pilots to fly in either seat. Many USAF C-141 squadrons allowed a pilot with 700+ hours in the right, to also fly under supervision in the left seat as First Pilot (also in Navy transport or patrol squadrons, known as 2P), but apparently this was not common in the C-130.
2) When on the ground in a two-person jet or turboprop cockpit, (in the US) normally the First Officer does the walk-around and after engine start until takeoff checks, for example, he/she does most of the checking and setting electrics, APU, pressurization, and hydraulics plus setting the flaps, trim, weight book for correct bug speed numbers....this is part of it. Also calls on various radios for IFR clearances, start + push/powerback, taxi clearances....even figuring weight and balance plus ensuring that no cargo pallets will shift, causing a crash.
This only describes some of the ground duties in the months when the cockpit is not hot...on the first of three, even six or seven flights in one long duty period, without rest or solid nutrition. When I was in the right seat in the blue sweatbox years ago, Captains sometimes said that it was the hardest cockpit job in the whole airline.
Our FOs on the older two-person machines are reportedly on average much busier than any widebody FE. Therefore the word copilot, as used by the media and most laymen, is often totally misleading and meaningless. And at the US regional airlines-all this work, up to 9 or more legs per day, for not much above the federal minimum wage, because the airline mgmt lobby group (RAA and the ATA) ganged up with certain court jurisdictions and many Congressmen ( a la Delta and COMAIR), possibly with certain White House and/or DOT "staff", to keep it this way.
