Flight Control Department

The Flight Control Department combines the duties of piloting a starship, navigation, and/or handling docking procedures, as is appropriate to a particular unit. Large starships with shuttle bays will have all three of these duties represented, while space stations will only have to deal with docking procedures, and the department is instead called the Flight Operations Department. This department is considered adjacent to command, and many officers move from this department into command just by virtue of their inherently greater experience with bridge operations than those in other departments. The vast majority of roles in this department are positions that can only be filled by officers.

Duties

Whether it's ensuring safe navigation around a unit (in the case of a station) or of a unit, Flight Control departments have overall responsibility for coordinating flight paths. On starships, they combine the role of Helmsman and Navigator, while on stations they serve manage the approach and departure procedures for the dozens of ships and hundreds of shuttles a major base would serve on any given day.

• Plot and execute courses for intrasystem and interstellar flight, from the helm on the bridge.
• Pilot a unit's auxiliary craft, such as shuttles, runabouts, or fighters.
• Coordinate docking and approach procedures (for small craft or starships, as is appropriate)

Starship Positions

At a minimum, starships must have one more flight control officer than the number of watches on that ship, to ensure constant coverage of the helm and to allow for mid-shift replacements. Larger starships have many more flight control officers than are needed for this purpose, so that they can also handle piloting small craft.

Chief Flight Control Officer

Lieutenant JG Tom Paris, Chief Flight Control Officer aboard Voyager.

The Chief Flight Control Officer (CFCO) is responsible for the safe navigation and piloting of a starship. The CFCO is a department head and generally has the helm personally for at least one shift per day, being the senior-most pilot aboard. The CFCO is also responsible for working with the ship's computer, stellar cartography section, and/or navigation section to ensure that courses are plotted efficiently and safely.

Assistant Chief Flight Control Officer

The Assistant Chief Flight Control Officer is the second-most-senior pilot or flight controller in a particular unit. As assistant department head, they help their department head determine a duty roster in coordination with the unit's executive officer. Otherwise, they have the same responsibilities of other flight control officers to take the helm for a shift on the bridge each day.

Flight Control Officer

Flight Control Officers are those officers who have a regular shift on the bridge or in station operations handling flight control duties. They can also be assigned to pilot small craft as necessary.

Relief Flight Control Officer

Relief Flight Control Officers are the most junior members of the flight control department qualified to pilot the ship or handle docking duties on a station. They are on-call for a particular shift, usually waiting in a room adjacent to the bridge or station operations, where they can quickly take over for a more senior officer at their station, should that officer be called away for some reason. They may occasionally also be given the helm for an entire shift, such as the night shift, and this is considered a training role, where they can accumulate enough hours of flight time to be considered fully-qualified.

Additional Starship Positions

Small Craft Pilot

Only the largest starships have dedicated small craft pilots, as that task normally falls to generalist flight control officers. On large explorers with dozens of shuttles and/or runabouts, however, having such pilots on staff reduces the need to use cross-trained personnel from other departments and it allows the starship to use most or all of its small craft simultaneously, which is critical for evacuation efforts and planetary surveys. On ships with fighters, there may be dedicated fighter pilots in addition to generalist small craft pilots, but they are not their own department, given that piloting a starship, piloting a shuttle, and piloting a fighter are all the same basic skill, unlike in historical naval situations in which navigating an ocean-going carriers was a dramatically different task than flying an aircraft.

Navigator's Mate

The navigator's mate is the senior enlisted member of any flight control department, either coming from the navigation specialist track or the flight deck specialist track. They assist the CFCO in developing a roster, and help mentor other enlisted members of their department. This role is not present on smaller units, especially in departments with small or no enlisted contingents.

Flight Deck Section

On smaller ships, flight deck operations are conducted either directly from the bridge or by generalist flight control officers from the hanger control booth as necessary. On larger ships, there is a dedicated team of Landing Signals Officers who handle approaches and landings, as well as ground crew that handle non-maintenance supports tasks, such as fueling, pre-positioning of vehicles, loading and unloading of mission supplies, and other such tasks.

Landing Signals Officer

Landing Signals Officers are specialist flight control officers who operate a starship or space station's hanger control rooms, guiding small craft in for a landing, either by remote control, tractor beam, or instructions over the comm. They are generally also assigned occasionally to operate the helm on the bridge, but their duty station during an alert status is in their shuttle bay's control room. There may be multiple LSOs on large ships or stations, generally one per shuttle bay.

Flight Deck Manager

The Flight Deck Manager is responsible for operations within the shuttle bay, specializing in moving small craft for storage and refueling, operating the landing tractor beams, and other tasks related to getting shuttles and shuttle pods ready to fly. On most ships, maintenance tasks are performed by crew from the Engineering department and landing control itself is performed by an on-duty flight control officer, or by a dedicated Landing Signals Officer, while the this position is responsible for things like moving shuttles within the bay, and coordinating refueling. On starships with multiple bays, there are multiple flight deck managers. This position might also be found within the Operations department rather than the Flight Control department, and in either case wears operations gold.

Flight Deck Specialist

Flight deck specialists are enlisted specialists who assist the shuttle bay manager in getting small craft ready to fly, when it comes to positioning, refueling, and scheduling, not in terms of maintenance or piloting. On smaller ships, there may be no dedicated flight deck specialists, with enlisted members of the engineering or operations departments pulling double duty.

Navigation Section

By the mid-24th century, navigation was no longer a separate bridge function from the helm, and the two roles were combined into the title of Flight Control Officer, however navigation is still a specialty that is represented on medium to large starships. The Navigation Section coordinates with Stellar Cartography and other disciplines aboard the ship to ensure that courses are plotted effectively. The computer handles the majority of such plotting, but navigation officers and specialists are on-hand to make manual adjustments or to suss out particularly difficult navigation problems. This section wears sciences blue, rather than command red.

Navigation Officer

Commander Pavel Chekov was the navigator aboard the Enterprise-A, when Navigation was a department head position. Note that he is wearing the sciences division color for the era: grey.

Navigation officers are specialists in plotting courses for starships, especially in situations that require complex calculations and careful auditing of the main computer's suggestions. These officers must have training in astrophysics and stellar cartography, and generally report to one of those departments when not needed to plot a course. Collectively with any navigation specialists, they form the Navigation Section. On ships with more than one navigation officer, they may follow the structure of Chief, Assistant Chief, etc.

Navigation Specialist

Navigation specialists are enlisted navigators who assist navigation officers, with extensive training in the calculations necessary to navigate a starship.

Flight Control Department In-Play

• As of the 2360s by the latest, Starfleet combined the role of Helm and Navigation into Flight Control, likely due to advances in computer technology. FOs both plot the ship's course and pilot it. This means that any FO would need to be trained in astrophysics, stellar cartography, and starship operations, even with computer assistance.
• Some FOs would have regular watches, while others would be on-call to take over at any moment; the latter are what we've seen on the show itself, when an away team is called and seconds later both the FO and Ops officer have replacements who emerge from the turbolifts.
• Fighter piloting and starship piloting are not separate skills in Star Trek, because a fighter is a small starship. In the current military, helming a naval vessel and flying a fighter are very different tasks, and that is why they have wildly different tracks required of the officers doing these tasks. A ship might have a fighter squadron, but there's no reason that wouldn't be under the Chief Flight Control Officer, or that normal FOs couldn't also pilot fighters.