Pilot - Definition and Overview

The word pilot has several meanings:

• In shipping, a pilot is someone who guides ships through the waters near a harbour, or especially narrow or otherwise dangerous coastal waters.
• In aviation, a pilot, also known as an aviator, is someone who flies an aircraft.
• In human spaceflight, a pilot is someone who directly controls the flight of a spacecraft.
• The pilot on a locomotive is the device at the front to deflect obstacles (also known as a cowcatcher).
• A television pilot is the first episode of a television series. It is usually longer than normal episodes (often twice the normal length). The pilot is intended to get network programming executives, and later the public, interested in the series, and to set the general background of the story.
• Pilot is the name of a pop music group best known for their 1975 top-20 hit song "Magic".
• The Palm Pilot (often referred to simply as "Pilot") was the original model of the personal digital assistant (PDA), or handheld, computer manufactured and sold by 3Com Corporation, later by its spinoff Palm, Inc., and now by its spinoff palmOne, Inc..
• Many appliances that use natural gas or propane as their fuel utilize a pilot light, which is a small outlet of gas kept continually burning and generally used to light the larger burners on the appliance. This is now more often replaced with electric ignition, such as a heating element.
• A pilot fish (Naucrates ductor) is a small fish that often swims with sharks.
• The Pilot Pen Corporation is a company whose headquarters are situated in Japan. They are one of the world's major manufacturers of ink-based writing utensils.
• "Pilot" is the title of a short story in science fiction author Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence.
• In telecommunications, a pilot signal (or pilot tone) is used as an indicator, such as to indicate the presence of FM stereo or AM stereo.
• In computer science, PILOT is a programming language that was intended for use in computer-aided instruction.
• Pilot is one of the unique PEZ dispensers.
• Pilot is a brand of Automotive fuel.
• Pilot is a brand of famous pens, found mainly in Australia and New Zealand.