Do any modern aircraft require 3 crew on the flight deck?

Question

These days, most (all?) airliners require 2 pilots at any given time. However, until the 1980s, many airliners required more crew on the flight deck than this (5 for the Lockheed Constellation and 3 for the 747 models). The AN-225 (first flight 1988) is unique in having 6 flight crew members (related).

I'm interested in knowing if there are any modern aircraft (airliners and other types) that require 3 or more flight deck crew. For the sake of the question, let's limit "modern" aircraft to those which first flew after the year 2000. Spacecraft and spaceplanes don't count - atmospheric vehicles only. Sometimes there are more than 2 pilots on board for long-haul flights, but I'm interested in the minimum flight crew for the most basic flight.

Answer 1

I don't think there is any aircraft designed since 2000 which requires a flight crew of more than two people.

It's hard to prove a negative, but historically only larger aircraft required more than two crew members in the cockpit. So I went through the Wikipedia articles of Airbus, Boeing, Embraer, Antonov, UAC (Ilyushin, Irkut, etc.) and Comac and looked for mid- to long-range aircraft that first flew since 2000:

Aircraft Model	First Flight	Crew
Airbus A380	2005	2
Airbus A350	2015	2
Airbus A310 MRTT	2003	3 or 4
Airbus A400M	2009	3 or 4
Antonov An-148	2004	2
Boeing 787	2009	2
Boeing KC-767	2005	3
Boeing P-8	2009	2 to 7
Comac C919	2017	2
Embraer C-390	2015	2
Ilyushin Il-112	2019	2
Ilyushin Il-276	2023 (planned)	3
Irkut MC-21	2017	2

The crew number is taken from the respective Wikipedia articles (where available). There are 4 aircraft that list more than two crew members here:

• Airbus A310 MRTT: Wikipedia says

  Crew: Three (hose and drogue) or four (flying boom) flight crew (two pilots and other flight crew)

  and I found this article saying

  The multi-role tanker transport is operated by a flight crew of three for all missions relating to Air-to-Air Refuelling (AAR): two pilots and the AAR operator. The AAR operator station is located in the cockpit just behind the captain. The two pilots have direct access to the majority of the information and controls concerning the AAR operational and safety aspects.

  So, technically, the AAR operator(s) would count as crew in the cockpit. However, you asked for "the minimum amount of flight deck crew for the most basic flight" and I guess the aircraft can be flown with just the two pilots, if no refueling is performed during the flight.

• Airbus A400M: Wikipedia says

  Crew: 3 or 4 (2 pilots, 3rd optional, 1 loadmaster)

  so 2 pilots are enough and (even though listed as required crew) I wouldn't count the loadmaster as flight deck crew. I guess an empty A400M would be allowed to fly without a loadmaster on board.

• Boeing KC-767: Wikipedia says

  Crew: 3: 2 pilots, 1 boom operator

  so this is similar to the A310 MRTT.

• Ilyushin Il-276: While the Wikpedia article lists the crew as 3, the Ilyushin website on the planned Multi-Purpose Transport Aircraft (MPTA) says

  Crew, persons: 3 (2)

  and when further reading the article, it says

  The flight crew includes three persons: chief pilot, co-pilot, and navigator. The aircraft design envisages installation of an additional seat for the flight engineer. [...] The aircraft design ensures autonomous (without contact with the home airfield) solving of transportation tasks and flight preparations by the efforts of technical and flight crews from 2 to 6 persons.

  This sounds like up to 4 crew members can be in the cockpit, but only 2 are required.

Answer 2

«pilots» and «flight deck crew» are not synonyms.

«pilots» are subset of «flight deck crew».

There have always been only two pilots flying the aeroplane, PIC and second officer, even in pre-«modern» times, according to your terminology.

Automation and computers rendered flight engineers obsolete.

Advancements in navigation like aviation-grade GNSS, virtual VORs, PBN etc made flight navigator obsolete.

There isn't any post-2000 design that requires minimum flight crew of more than 2.