This is inspired by seeing Top Gun: Maverick, where one fighter has a second person in the cockpit as a weapons system officer, while the other doesn’t. Does the other aircraft only have a one-seat cockpit?
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The two aircraft featured at the F/A-1E and F models.
E models have a single seat, while F models have the dual seat. They are functionally similar and do many of the same tasks.
Though the F model has the weapons system officer. Generally the second seat is to share workload for high workload missions, like operating the radar or targeting weapons while the pilot flies.
They can also serve as training aircraft but generally for mission sets that may be too much for one person to do while also flying the aircraft. >!like flying a terrain profile approach and target the weapons at the same time!<
That being said the systems *can* be operated by one person, and that’s even shown in the movie. Though it’s harder to target weapons accurately while maneuvering, advanced things like electronic warfare, or night fighting.
There’s downsides to the two seats though. IIRC reading somewhere that the second seat takes away like 300 gallons of fuel capacity relative to a single seater.
As for why both in the movie instead of just all F models, Likely casting/plot. >!since if there were 4 crew who ejected then they couldn’t have that tomcat cameo finally. Or they have to have 2. Which would just be pushing it. Even for Top Gun.!<
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