On Jan 24, 1:33*am, terry wrote:

If the commanders flew the LMs why was the second guy always called
the LM pilot?
I am sure there has been plenty of civilian pilots in the shuttle
program but not as pilots.

Harrison Schmitt ( Apollo 17 Lunar module pilot) was a civillian but
to what extent did he help fly the LM?

The guy in the right-hand seat was called the "Lunar Module Pilot" but
in fact he had very little to do with the hands-on flying of the Lunar
Module. The mission commander was the guy with his hands actually on
the controllers and his eye on the COAS sight, steering the LM down.
The LMP's duties were more like a flight engineer's- they consisted
mostly of making sure that the onboard computer was correctly set up,
calling out guidance information to the pilot during descent, and
dealing with any alarms that cropped up. (_Chariots for Apollo_ notes
that the LMP's original title was "Engineer-Scientist", which is
probably closer to accurate.)

-JTD