Hey guys,I am just wondering, I kno that Pilot Ranks have the following meaning:1 stripe - solo2 stripes - Private Pilot3 stripes - Commercial4 stripes -ATPL.However when i see videos on youtube of pilots flying the plane, the co-pilots sometimes have only 2 bars and sometimes both pilots have 4 bars. How come?

Pilot stripes don't have "real" meaning at all, its not like a structured military ranks that are absolute. It is even quite appropriate for a mere private pilot to wear 4 stripes if he / she is in command of an aircraft. Just as it is allowable for the "captain" of one's boat to wear 4 stripes. Now, stripes for airline pilots denote at-a-glance visible ranking (more for uniformity, tradition and so passengers can ooh and ahh when a captain walks by with his four stripes glistening in the sunlight). Depending on the airline, sometimes the second officer has 2 stripes, most wear 3. Traditionally, first officers wear 3 stripes and captains wear 4 stripes. Some airlines even start first officers at 2 stripes, and as they progress towards captain they will gain the other 2 strips (this is pretty rare).Many times a pilot having achieved "captain" rank in one aircraft (say B737) is too junior to hold the captain seat on another aircraft (for instance, B757) but senior enough to hold a line on that aircaft. In that case the pilot will keep the 4 stripes because the rank of captain has been acheived and is most often not taken away, but fly from the right seat as first officer. The left seat pilot is almost always the pilot in command so if there are two pilots with 4 stripes, the pilot-in-command is the captain and the right seat pilot is the first officer even though both have 4 stripes. And as such, a first officer with 4 stripes is not necessarily higher in rank than an equal first officer with three stripes.Continental even used a rank system for their flight attendants! A single stripe for regular flight attendants and a second stripe for a Flight Service Manager who was "in charge" of the cabin crew...I think they did away with the FSM rank now, but some old school FA's still wear two stripes.

I believe it goes like this:One stripe = private pilotTwo stripes= commercial pilotThree stripes= First OfficerFour stripes= CaptainSince only professional pilots wear epaulets the one stripe is carried by those who have earned their wings in a flying academy but are still working their ways to a commercial ticket. As you can see it's quite normal for a two-striper to fly something like a chartered Seneca since it requires no more than a single commercial pilot. When it comes to first officers theoretically it should only apply to aircraft that requires a crew of two and in most such cases a type rating. But at the same time it becomes a hierarchy thing specific to each company. You'll likely find in a Kingair B200 cockpit a four-stripe captain and a three-stripe first officer on a part 135 flight. And that same captain can be down graded to wear three stripes when he moves on to the next plane that he's not experienced with. I've also heard that some airlines use two and three stripes to differentiate junior and senior FOs.That's to the best of my knowledge.

The stripes generally have any meaning the company deems fit. Given private pilots don't have a uniform unless they're wanting to be geeks and commercial pilots for smaller outfits have worn three stripes and four-stripes, though even most of them are generally not given formal uniforms. I don't know why they would even be mentioned in such a list. I imagine the system originally started when there was a flight engineer and a navigator, which may account for the single-stripe and double-stripe, but there's really no standardization across the airlines. Some airlines wear silver, some wear gold, some wear both.

Thanks everyone, for me this falls under the heading of ' I did not know that ', so I have learned something new today. Thanks again.Regards,Mel