4 Seater Jet Plane

Airplane desing - Why do some fighters have two pilot while others have only one?

The main issues are the pilots' working load and the army politics at designing age. You will find that the US Army F or A class F double-seater combat aircraft and attacking aircraft were primarily developed in the latter part of the Korea-Vietnamese era, which was the third and early forth generations of combat aircraft.

It was a crucial phase in the shift from the World Wars and Korean aircraft fighting philosophies, especially daytime gunners engaged in the field of sight with cannons, to a contemporary aerial battle with all-weather accuracy missions starting with the BVR through the use of radars, rockets and target calculators. In the early "century series", these aircraft were incorporated into the battlecockpit to develop what would ultimately be called a "multipurpose fighter", increasing the pilots' working load in comparison to the relatively easy layout and weapon system of early jet and prop-jets.

Consequently, these frameworks, which were designed to raise the pilot's situation consciousness, did exactly the opposite and forced the pilots to keep their minds "in the cockpit" by respecting the measuring instruments and indicators with their situation consciousness for what was going on outside the plane, somewhere around their knuckles. Identifying the issue, but with inadequate technological capabilities to remove crucial "heads-down" functions such as navigating from the pilots, the design engineers first added a second crew member whose task would be to perform functions not directly related to the aircraft's prime operations, such as navigating, administering the radars, looking at the skies around them, manipulating radiocommunications, etc.

Usually this type is formally known as radar interceptor or RIO or informal as GIB (Guy In Back). This would require some further technology development, such as the gyroscope, the heads-up screen, the HOTAS controller layout, the built-in fire computer and sophisticated A4I capabilities such as AWACS/JSTARS, before the typical combat aircraft load can reasonably be managed by a crew member.

The AWACS can lead and counsel fighters like the civil ATC, the INA allows fighters to easily point their aircraft in the indicated heading, as distinct from watching navigational charts to find out exactly where they were, and the HUD and HOTAS took the pilot's helm out of the dashboard by putting the information and checks he needs to actually fight the jet where they should be, right in front of him and/or in his hand.

Among the most important combat and offensive aircraft of the third and forth generations using a two-man team are the F-4 Phantom, F-111 Aardvark, A-6 Intruder, F-14 Tomcat as well as the F-15 Eagle, F-16 Falcon and F-18 Hornet versions. When the F-15 to F-18 were developed, it was found that design engineers and US top quality brasses already regarded single-seaters as adequate; the design and incorporation of the above mentioned system into US 4th class combat aircraft had successfully made the aircraft's working load more straightforward for one individual, so that the rear-seater (which needed costly flying instruction just like the pilot) could be transferred as a passenger to a second aircraft instead of the first, and the B/D versions of the Eagle, Falcon and Hornet were mainly used as a trainer.

All of these drafts, however, were designed in both one-seater and two-seater versions for all cases; the next combatants designed for the USAF inland, the F-22 and the F-23, were single-seater only (at least one two-seater F-22B was constructed, whether as a coach or as a pre-production assessment aircraft, but the USAF never seriously looked at a two-seater).

Residual two-seater combat aircraft in the US armory are the dive fighter F-15E (the rear seater with the clear designation "Weapons System Officer" or "Wizzo" and in charge of the rather complicated on-board radars and targets) and F/A-18 versions with the F version "Super Hornet" and the GSM version "Growler" EW. Further versions of the F/A-18 are the F/A-18, the F-18 and the A-18.

The GIB usually administers the progressive radars, targets and disturbance control system of these ships and supports air combat by supplying a second pair of sighting points specifically behind the airplane. EA-6B Prowler, an older EA plane that was superseded this year by EA-18G Growler, had a four-person flight force; one flight attendant and three corrective measures.