Flight Control Officer

The FCO is responsible for the ship or base astrogation and flight control. Although these functions are primarily automated, their importance requires an officer to oversee them at all times for the safety of the ship and crew. The FCO receives his or her orders directly from the Commanding Officer or the officer presiding over the bridge watch. Areas of responsibility for the FCO include: navigational references and course plotting, supervision of automatic flight functions, manual flight operations, and position verification. During impulse flight, FCOs are responsible for making sure that all maneuvers stay within the boundaries of the ship's performance envelope. During warp flight, FCOs are required to monitor the ship's subspace field geometry and oversee automatic course corrections by the computer to account for minor variations in the density of interstellar medium.