flight engineer
3
4.8
- noun
- /flaɪt ˌɛnˈdʒɪnɪr/
- Specialized
:
ingeniero de vuelo
- Our flight engineer monitored the aircraft's systems throughout the journey to ensure safety.
- pilots and flight engineer
- flight engineer and gunner
- navigator and flight engineer
Examples
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We want you to look at the flight engineer's panel in the center just above the desk.
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Aircraft pilots and flight engineers came in third on the deadliest careers list, with a total of 72 work fatalities.
Blog text (30) -
Plus, we lost our flight engineer.
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Better check that with your flight engineer.
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The Captain turns to the flight engineer.
Fiction book (1996) -
Our flight engineer said we had high oil pressure right before we aborted, so...
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"At times I could see people freeze in the lab," says Grant, who served as a flight engineer in the Australian Air Force before taking up archaeology.
Academic text (2009) -
Hauck was joined on the flight deck by his pilot, Dave Walker, and flight engineer Anna Fisher.
Blog text (11) -
The flight engineer was paging through a manual, a look of quiet desperation on his face.
Fiction book (1991) -
My father, Walter F. Falck Jr., was a B-24 flight engineer in the European theater.
Blog text (11)
Synonyms
47
3.2
A person who works with others on a ship, aircraft, or vehicle
3
3.5
A group of people who work on a plane during a flight, such as pilots and cabin crew
A person who works on a plane during a flight
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from combining flight (an aircraft journey) and engineer (a skilled person who designs or maintains systems): it denotes an engineer who works on or monitors aircraft systems during a flight. This noun–noun compounding is a regular, compositional pattern and is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents should understand the MWE.
Etymology
Flight engineer comes from early air travel when planes had many controls and needed a trained engineer in the cockpit to watch the engines and other systems during a flight. That's why it means 'a crew member who watches and controls the plane's machines during a flight'.