Is helm really a junior officer's job only?

[sbk1234]

I hear a lot of speculation about how helm should only be manned by a junior officer. That Sulu, as a commander, shouldn't be wasting his time at helm.

Is that really the case? I've always thought of helm as being a fairly te chnical job, since in addition to driving the ship, they would also have to maintain and keep the helm equipment running.
As Chief Helm Officer, I imagine that would also include coordinating the rest of the helm staff, drills and training for emergency situations, etc.

What do you think? Cosmic thoughts, Gentlemen? (And Ladies.)

 

[Timo]

In today's world, turning the wheel is a fairly menial job. Perhaps during TOS, it was a more demanding and multifaceted profession, but it sounds plausible that ships of the 24th century would fly themselves. And since the job of aiming and firing the ship's guns has been outsourced to a specialist...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

I've always thought of helm as being a fairly technical job, since in addition to driving the ship, they would also have to maintain and keep the helm equipment running.
As Chief Helm Officer, I imagine that would also include coordinating the rest of the helm staff, drills and training for emergency situations, etc.

I generally thought that too.

I also think on most ships, the helm probably rates no more than a lieutenant in Starfleet (but even then it depends on a particular ship's chain of command, IMO).

On Kirk's Enterprise (particularly from TMP onwards), it could be argued that a senior-rank officer like Sulu was more the exception than the rule. Periodically, though, Sulu may also have taken turns in the center seat on various duty shifts while someone else was manning the helm too.

 

[T'Girl]

In the US Navy it's the job of a petty officer, in the last movie I believe that Sulu's job title was at least once by Captain Pike referred to as "pilot" which would be a officers position, Sulu was the primary gunner for the Enterprise, although the navigator could sub for him at this.

The impression I got from TOS was that the navigator was basically working for and under the helmsman. Sulu also monitored sensors that were in some way separate from Spock's. Also Sulu wasn't "just" a helmsman, he had enough seniority to be given command during combat situations and he commanded landing parties

 

[Nerys Myk]

Mitchell and Number One worked helm/navigation. Mitchell was a Lt. Commander. Not sure what rank Number One held. Though as XO she could have been a Commader.

 

[The Wormhole]

One would think that piloting a starship at FTL speeds would be a demanding job that would require a lot of skill and training. But then TNG showed as that the most advanced ship in Starfleet could be piloted by a teenager with no training, so who knows?

 

[T'Girl]

Mitchell was (I believe) only a Lieutenant. At 23 years of age he'd have been a bit young to be a Lt. Commander.

Number One might have been at the helm because of the dead and wounded, she was just filling in.

 

[The Wormhole]

Mitchell was indeed a Lt. Comander.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Gary_Mitchell

 

[M'Sharak]

Mitchell and Number One worked helm/navigation. Mitchell was a Lt. Commander. Not sure what rank Number One held. Though as XO she could have been a Commader.

Number One held the rank of Lieutenant, though the line from "The Cage" in which this was stated was omitted in "The Menagerie".

 

[Nerys Myk]

Mitchell and Number One worked helm/navigation. Mitchell was a Lt. Commander. Not sure what rank Number One held. Though as XO she could have been a Commader.

Number One held the rank of Lieutenant, though the line from "The Cage" in which this was stated was omitted in "The Menagerie".

Contradiction!!!!! Norman co-ordinate!!!!

 

[SpyOne]

As mentioned above, in the modern Navy, actually handling the physical controls is a job for an enlisted man.
On TNG, they kept trying to find a character for that position and finally decided that job didn't need to be someone important.

Sulu didn't just run the Helm: he seemed to have almost all of the duties given to the TNG Chief Tactical Officer. He ran the weapons, he had his own sensors, and IIRC he ran Security. Maybe that was just in the Mirror Universe. While the helm itself could probably be run by a Chief, those extra duties definitely push the job into officer territory, IMO. In fact, it appears to be an important stepping stone on the path to command.

 

[Pauln6]

Mitchell and Number One doubled as XO so this could explain their more senior ranks. In TOS most visible crew were officers so it's hard to make a true judgment. In TNG it was a position most often manned by an ensign or Lt(jg). Pilots are usually officers and helm officers may be required to take on the duty watch offer's role if the duty officer leaves the bridge. I think it's viewed as a good position for junior officers to gain command experience for later in their career.

In TMP Sulu was also a Lt-commander at helm, although that may not have been his primary position as it seems quite menial for a man of his experience, particularly when you consider that weapons by that time had been passed over to the tactical station. I've been assuming that he was the Chief Operations Officer who was manning helm during a major crisis. However, I'm struggling to work out where the normal post for the Operations Officer would be on the ship and what they might be expected to do (possibly the Power Distribution Room or Flight Control Room which co-ordinates external operations such as shuttle flights - I think the latter room might be a good base of operations - close to the cargo hold and shuttle bay and close enough to liaise or visit the Power distribution room as necessary).

 

[The Wormhole]

Mitchell and Number One doubled as XO so this could explain their more senior ranks.

Actually, the matter of Mitchell being the XO has been a hot topic debate for years now. Even the novels contradict themselves on the matter.

 

[T'Girl]

I've been assuming that he was the Chief Operations Officer who was manning helm during a major crisis.

Helmsman might be the catch all job title for all of these; pilot, gunner, operations, internal security, flight sensors.


Personal I believe Spock was the first officer during WNMHGB, Kirk, Spock, the young woman behind kirk's chair (not a yeoman) and one other woman in the corridor outside the transporter room were the only people on board wearing a certain color shirt, gold-green. Mitchell and a lot of others wore a sand colored shirt.

Spock shared a shirt color with Kirk, not Mitchell.

 

[Pauln6]

Uniform colours are another matter! They've been so inconsistent throughout Trek history: Charlene Masterson wore blue despite being a member of the engineering team, Ann Mulhall wore red, despite being the ship's astrobiologist, Uhura shifted from a yellow uniform to red, and I vaguely recall a blueshirt at helm or navigation once. Departmental divisions were very odd and inconsistent in the movies too. It wasn't until TNG that the uniforms became more consistent and even then there were almost no scientists shown. One other interesting move was Sulu's transfer from physics to helm.

TOS certainly showed helm officers having greater responsibilites than later on (TMP removed a lot of their responsibilities by defining the other bridge stations so that weapons, shields, internal security, and various engineering stations abound). I think one element is the writers using whichever actors they have to deliver the lines to tell the story. I think this was the beginning of the post becoming more menial.

I actually prefer TOS' method of using various guest stars to represent key crew in different episodes. NuBSG used a similar method to give itself a large cast of 'more than extras' that we can start to care about by the time they bump them off.

 

[plynch]

One catch-all eliminates other speaking actors: economical. One Sulu = Kim + Tuvok + Paris. I LIKED it better in early TOS when there were more more-than-extras. I read on this BBS, though, that consolidating to mainly Uhura and Sulu (then Chekov) would give viewers more of a recurring family to relate to. Sounds like Coon at work to me.

Frankly, logistically, I don't like OPS as a position -- too amorphous; it seems more likely that people would have specific jobs, like someone pointed out is how it is in TMP.