Second officers
 

What is a second officer and what does he do. How long time before he becomes a first officer :confused:

He's a pilot- and FE-qualified crewmember in the flight engineer's seat.

He performs the flight engineer job in airplanes requiring them (727, 747 Classic...).

Time in seat depends on the airline. Could be a few months or several years.

Depends on the airline.
Where I work the pilot in the right hand seat is either a First Officer or a Second Officer depending on his/her experience. The Second Officer gains his/her "Third Stripe" and becomes a First Officer when they have 1500 hours of total time with at least 500 hours jet time.

Although I'm a pilot, I am a very big proponent of professional flight engineers. Generally they are not pilots, but were flight engineers from the start - many from the military. Most have A&P licenses and have been doing the job for many years and know their aircraft inside out. In emergencies they help by taking care of the airplane problems which allows the pilot to concentrate on decision-making and aircraft control.

PFE's - worth their weight in gold in my book. Too bad it's a dying profession. I'll bet if the Air Transat had a PFE on board, they would have had a uneventful SE landing in Lajes instead of a white-knuckled shocker.

Thanks, the reason i ask is i have been on EASYS homepage and S/O salary is mentioned there, but i thought they only operated with newer 737 and they do not (to my knowlegde)require a FE. :cool:

Britannia has the policy described above by pogop : a S/O needs 1500TT & 500 jet (or 1000 turbine) to become F/O. In addition, depending on your jet time, there are 3 different S/O ranks (S/O 1, S/O 2 & S/O 3), triggering different salaries.

MF

Hi there,
I'm currently flying as SO for Lufthansa,
where you are called Second officer during the line training (about 2.5-3 months)

And on some airlines the SO is a cruise relief pilot on long haul flights.
He or she is allowed to do duties as PF or PNF above FL200 only.