Aircraft with most crew members (minus cabin crew)
 

Hi all,

Random question about older aircraft. What aircraft had the most crew members to operate the aircraft?

Off the top of my head;

1. Captain
2. First Officer
3. Flight Engineer
4. Navigator
5. Radio Operator
6. Loadmaster
7. Second Officer

Any other roles I am missing?

Thanks

I'm sure I read that the AN-225 has up to 20 crew members including the loadmaster and the cargo handling crew. I guess the crew compliment on the AN-124 may be not much different.

Are you asking Military or Civil?

I believe the Hindenburg had a crew of 40.

The An-225 seems to have not only two flight engineers one a loadmaster but a full team of at least a dozen loaders many of them aviation engineers. They have some modular loading system and onboard cranes to get whatever it is onboard. Everybody is accommodated in the upper deck racks, so permanent crew.

Do the men in the black leather coats count as cabin crew?

What is considered “operate”?
A loadmaster is not required to fly the aircraft.

I would include the loadmaster as on cargo aircraft the load is hardly self loading, and likewise those on board to operate the equipment for loading and unloading the aircraft.

Getting into the realms of semantics here it seems but any Mil Loadmaster in particular would "less than politely " inform you otherwise.

As for crew compliments, yep, the AN 124 has two drivers, two F/ E's , a Nav and a Radio Op along with....a Loadmaster. The rest of the crew are a mix of ground engineers / loaders butt they all get involved it seems with constructing the loading ramps. They live, literally, at the rear and there's a tunnel to get forward when required, but, as we were informed by the Loadie, there's a demarcation zone as it were and it was suggested we didn't venture past it. That said, on the ground, they were happy for us to have a look at the cockpit. The Loadie has his own station on the left at the rear.

That's all now as it were, but surely some of the American / Russian heavy bombers carried a large compliment in the past until they were designed out by technology.

Now back in the 1960s if we operated an aircraft across the Atlantic we needed a Navigator as part of the crew , but if we were operating say just to Rome and back there was no need for a Navigator so the crew were say 2 pilots and a F/E

Passenger airliners, first Jets -
Even the Comet 1 series had 4, or sometimes 5 flight crew in the cockpit/pointy end, as did 707's & VC-10's on the Transatlantic & Pacific until NAV aids and Comms were much improved.

1. Captain
2. First Officer
3. Flight Engineer
4. Navigator/Second officer
5. Radio Operator

Plus, often would also carry a ground engineer as well for remote outstations.

Then we found ourselves in the late 1960's with old 80 seater DC-4's (such as Channel AW & Air Ferry) just flying around with 2 pilots.

...which is akin to saying you don't need a rigger to fly the aircraft. But you won't fly long without one.

Hawker 801

2 pilots
Flight engineer
2 navigators
1 Air Electronics Officer
3 Wet men
4 Dry men
Sometimes a few more

Rog747 I can assure you the VC-10 did not carry a Radio Officer. The last British airliner I know of which had a R/O position was the Britannia 312 and I specify 312 because all the other versions of the 300 series did not have a R/O position,

1649 Constellation, DC7C: Europe to KLAX/KSFO, 20+ hours
1 Capt/AC Commander
2 FO
2 FE
2 Navs

Boeing 707, Same routing: <12 Hours
1 Capt/AC Commander
1 FO
2 FE (Union policy)
1 Nav/RP

Some operators, most notably BOAC and Pan Am supplemented duties between Nav duties and FO duties (2nd Officer).

Thanks Brit312 - perhaps it was EAAC that had 5 crew on their VC-10's sometimes?
I did read somewhere about a radio officer...

The ATA showed that a 1940s four-engined bomber could be flown by a single person, so I think it's more interesting to considerr the number of people required to operate the aircraft in a normal fashion; FAs are a pretty clearly separate category.

Not sure if it qualifies, but iirc the 'Caspian Sea Monster' had a crew of 22, who were required for the trimming of the aircraft.
Inadequate coordination of this team reportedly was what caused the crash of the prototype.

Nobody has mentioned boats both civil and military, were they crew heavy?

Excuse me, but I have an image of a lot of big Russian blokes running fore and aft at the commands of the Captain.