re: The guys who ride behind the pilot in jet fighters..

Passing this one over to my husband to respond since it happens to be right in his wheelhouse…
“There are two main wings in the Navy, Pilot Wings and Naval Flight Officer (NFO) Wings, (they also have similar designations in the Air Force, but I know more about the Naval service having been both a Tomcat RIO and later a Tomcat pilot). Every aircraft has at least one Pilot. F-14, F-18, F-16, F-15, S-3, While Large/Multi-engine aircraft have 2 pilots, KC-10, KC-135, C-130’s, etc. in addition to the pilot, some of these aircraft also have an NFO: F-14’s (RIO), F-15E’s (WSO), F-18E’s (WSO). There is no way to fly these jets from the backseat, so the NFO only has one flight control, and that is his ejection handle, I gripped it more than a few times as a new pilot was pushing the envelope, but never pulled it. The Air Force F-4 did have flight controls in the backseat, and they flew a lot of pilots in the backseat, but the Navy never had that capability - if they did, not many Navy jets would have landed on a carrier.”