The CP-140 Aurora crew is made up of ten persons. Up front in the cockpit there
are three crewmembers: the pilot, who is responsible for the safety of the aircraft
and its crew; the co-pilot, who shares the piloting duties with the pilot; and
the flight engineer, who is the expert on the airframe and engines. At the back,
in the tactical compartment, there are seven crewmembers. First, there is the
tactical navigator (TacNav), who is responsible for the accomplishment of the
mission and is in charge of all the tactical aspects of the mission. Then there
are two acoustic sensor operators (ASO), which are two navigators who specialize
in submarine detection. The Navigator Communicator (NavCom) carries out navigational
and communication duties. The other three crewmembers are the Airborne Electronic
Sensor Operators (AESOp) who are experts in the manipulation of the radar, Electronic
Support Measures (ESM), Forward Looking Infra-Red (FLIR), and Magnetic Anomaly
Detector (MAD) avionic equipment .
Crew Interaction
The centre point in a crew is the TacNav. The TacNav gathers the information coming
from the other crewmembers and maintains a tactical plot from which s/he makes
the decisions necessary to accomplish the mission. Hence, most of the intra-crew
communications flow from or to the TacNav. The pilot can override a decision from
the TacNav if the decision could put the aircraft and its crew in danger.
Courtesy of:Jocelyn Desbiens
INRS-Télécommunications
