Alex:
> Extratextually, I was keeping my promise to the real-life Collision to
> Tuckerise him, however briefly. I also didn't want to shunt a PC (Rosa)
> aside. It worked out that the pilot Collinson (rather than the
> librarian Collinson) gave her a boon on her piloting roll (given the
> sheer amount of traffic, she needed it).
>
> Intratextually, things had backlogged enough that the ports were worried
> about some dropkick merchant pilot doing a) something stupid and/or b) a
> chunk of the AZS' work for them by causing nontrivial damage.
>
Tom Rux:
Pilots in the maritime setting that I have experienced and watched on the show Disasters At Sea do not take the helm from the helmsman he gives instructions/commands to maneuver the ship.
I'd figured it was like that. The Harbour Pilot is more of a skipper for the approach vs. a helmsman. He will direct the helm, monitor speeds, bearings/course, keep an extra eye for traffic, would have an intimate knowledge of the channels, markers, buoys and any current situations that would change normal approaches. He would make sure the helm did as instructed in a snappy and accurate fashion or he would issue corrective actions.
The reason the Harbour Pilot would not be 'driving the ship' is because ships come in all sorts of variations for control systems (the larger ones may use more computers and very different interfaces). His job is to direct the ship's passage, it is the ship's helmsman who is expected to take the directions and implement them by his control of the helm.
Of course, there could be many ways to do this sort of thing at a port:
1) Put a Port Pilot aboard at the same time as a customs & immigration team gave an incoming ship the once over.
2) Have a Port Pilot provide remote direction to an incoming vessel (since most of the vessels will operate out of easy visual range until the final minutes, everyone is using sensors anyway)
3) Ship a 'Port Pilot Approach' software package and have that direct the helmsman or issue commands to the vessel's flight control directive interface (if such a common interface were available)
4) Maybe as you approach the heaviest portion of space near to the port, you have to come alongside a small 'Pilot Station' and embark a Pilot who will go with the ship through the complex traffic pattern, then catch a regular runabout back out to the Pilot Station most in need of staff (you may have multiple Pilot Stations for various practical approaches, though orbital mechanics and port placement might well mean there are only certain limited numbers of such approaches (maybe 3 or 4 stations?)
Exonidas Spaceport for Traveller from Dragon Magazine #59 I believe included both an automated landing system for some ships as well as a boost launch capability when going the other way. If it wasn't there I saw it, it was in some other Traveller related product.
TomB