FTA "To fly a parabola takes 3 pilots working in concert. Two pilots sit in front of the control columns and a third sits in the center jump seat to manage the engines. When flying a parabola, one pilot is responsible for the pitch of the aircraft and the other for the roll. The pilot responsible for the roll of the aircraft actually has a modified control column in order to put as little pressure on the yoke as possible, allowing the pitch pilot to focus on the correct parabola timing." I think precise timing requires many pilots. Lots to keep track of in the name of science.
Yeah doing a parabola is relatively easy. Doing a nearly perfect one to maximize weightlessness without overstressing something is harder, so having one pilot for each aspect makes sense.
Another for radio and another for “general everything watching; the captain” makes sense.
My aviation family has a long history all the way back to training pilots for WWII (already highly experienced - too much so for combat) so my hunch is accuracy and redundancy.
Under normal conditions, sure it’s a one time maneuver, within limits, etc. This is much more of a risk-laden undertaking with the repeated stress on the airframe, the human body, and so having individual attention on important individual tasks - with experience and brain computing speed machines still can’t match for a brilliant stick and yoke pilot in unexpected conditions - this is for safety.
Also considering my background with French culture, I imagine the discussion went something like “we could do it with fewer personnel, but why? This works.”
I imagine it's for an abundance of caution, as they are flying these planes way outside what their normal operations manual recommends. I assume a 320 NEO or a 737 MAX would slap the hand of the pilot if they attempted to go for a +50 degree climb and scream expletives in the voice alert system.
Okay you just gave me a mental image of an Airbus autopilot system so angry at you it starts swearing in French. Totally agree with safety and ‘normal use case this is not’ situation.