pilot, person responsible for safe navigation of a ship or airplane. A ship's pilot is an individual possessing local knowledge of coastal waters. Usually licensed by public authority (in the United States, by the U.S. Coast Guard), he is taken on board to conduct a ship to or from port. The airplane pilot, in contrast to the ship's pilot, has overall command of the craft, which is operated, generally, with the assistance of a copilot. Before an airplane pilot can be licensed in the United States, he must clock a prescribed amount of solo flying experience and pass a series of tests given by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

Any of one to three species (genus Globicephala, family Delphinidae) of toothed whale found in all oceans except the Arctic and Antarctic, also called caa'ing whale for a roaring sound it makes when stranded. It is black, usually with a lighter splash on the throat and chest, and has a round, bulging forehead, a short beaklike snout, and slender, pointed flippers, and grows to 13–20 ft (4–6 m) long. Pilot whales live in large schools, sometimes hundreds or thousands, feeding mainly on squid. They have been kept in oceanariums and trained to perform.

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Widely distributed species (Naucrates ductor, family Carangidae) of carnivorous fish that inhabits warm and tropical open seas. It is slender and has a forked tail, a lengthwise keel on each side of the tail base, and a few small spines in front of the dorsal and anal fins. It may grow to 2 ft (60 cm) but is usually about 14 in. (35 cm) long. Five to seven distinctive vertical dark bands mark the bluish body. Pilot fishes follow sharks and ships, apparently to feed on parasites and leftover scraps. It was formerly thought that they were leading, or “piloting,” the larger fishes to food.

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Pilot can refer to:

Paper publications

• "Pilot" (short story) by Stephen Baxter
• The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea, a historical fiction novel by James Fenimore Cooper
• The Virginian-Pilot, newspaper serving the Hampton Roads part of Virginia
• The Pilot (Lewisporte, Newfoundland and Labrador), newspaper serving the Lewisporte area of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
• Pilot Magazine UK, a UK based General Aviation magazine

Film and television

• Pilot #5, a 1947 film
• Pilot (Farscape), a character in the science fiction television series Farscape.
• Television pilot, often called just a pilot, is a trial episode made to sell a television series. There are also countless series whose pilot episodes are titled "Pilot"
• Film pilot: a trial segment used to attract further financing for a film
• The Pilot, Part 1 and The Pilot, Part 2, the two episodes compromising Seinfeld's Season 4 finale
• Pilot Guides, a travel documentary and guide television series
• The Pilot, also known as Space Jockey, an extraterrestrial life form from the Alien franchise.

Music

• Pilot (band), a pop rock group best known for their 1975 hit songs "Magic" and "January"

Biology

• Pilot fish, (Naucrates ductor), a small fish that often swims with sharks
• Pilot whale, a whale-like dolphin.
• Agkistrodon piscivorus, a.k.a. the cottonmouth; a venomous snake found in North America.
• Agkistrodon contortrix mokasen, a.k.a. the northern copperhead, another venomous snake found in North America.
• Heterodon platirhinos, a non-venomous colubrid found in North America.

Computer science

• Pilot (operating system), operating system designed by Xerox PARC in 1970s
• PILOT, programming language

Others

• Pilot (aviation), an aviator who flies aircraft
• Pilot (experiment), a precursor to a full study
• Pilot light, a small outlet of gas kept continually burning and generally used to light the larger burners on the appliance
• Pilot signal, or pilot tone, in telecommunications, provided as a frequency or phase reference
• Pilot (locomotive), the device at the front of a locomotive to deflect obstacles (also known as a cowcatcher)
• Station pilot, a locomotive based at a major railway station for the purposes of shunting passenger coaches and vans
• Pilot (icebreaker), the first icebreaker, built in 1864
• Maritime pilot, a mariner who guides ships through dangerous or congested waters, such as harbours or river mouths.

Acronyms

• PILOT programming language, in computer science
• PILOT (finance), in public finance, a payment in lieu of taxes

See also

• Pilate (disambiguation), a common misspelling
• Driver (operator of a land vehicle), a mistranslation from French or some other languages.