After the hijacked AF1 is commanded once again by the President, the man in the cockpit with him is William H. Macy. When Harrison Ford asks if he knows how to fly the plane, he denies this. Yet, the insignia above the pocket of his uniform identified him as a pilot because he is wearing Command Pilot Wings.
As a pilot who has flown small aircraft, fighters and large multi-engined aircraft, I can assure you that if you can competently fly *any* fixed wing aircraft, you can handle *flying* just about anything else. The landing, now there is a the tricky part. :-) Keeping a plane in the air isn't that hard, and a 747 is easy to fly.
Regarding the Command Pilot Wings mentioned before, to me it looked like they were Senior Controller-type wings? The USAF has "wings" for everything, even Legal Services-types.
The question in the movie was, "are you a pilot"? He was wearing USAF "Command Pilot Wings" which means HE IS! As a pilot myself, once I know some non-pilot will try to fly the plane, I'm taking over (and so would any pilot). This was simply Hollywood putting a uniform on an actor without researching that the medals and insignia actually MEAN something.
Also, just because he is wearing a pilot's uniform doesn't necessarily mean he is a pilot: He could be going to a fancy dress party as a pilot or could have nicked the jacket off one of the dead pilots because he was cold!
A fancy dress party?
Anyway...yeah. As the person at the top said. He could be a pilot of one or more DIFFERENT planes. Each plane/jet flys differently. You have to be licensed for each plane/jet that you fly. Fighter jets and 747's are completely different.
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