Title: Warbird Alley: L-39 Albatros Pilot Report
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Content: The cockpits are fully pressurized, heated and air-conditioned. Each of the  tandem cockpits is equipped with enough flight controls, flight instruments, engine  gauges, and system status indicators to allow either pilot to safely operate the airplane. As with most military jet trainers, the back seat was designed for instructors and, like many modern trainers, there is limited or no access to certain  controls and switches in the rear "pit." In the L-39, these items include  environmental controls, fuel pump switches, and the normal electrical controls. Also, the rear  seat occupant cannot monitor the Exhaust Gas Temperature (EGT) simultaneously with the  front-seater. In actual practice, none of these factors is a problem. There are duplicates  of the really important controls in the back (and who really needs all that stuff,  anyway?) The back seater does, however, have a few unique items to himself: a fiendish  array of levers and switches which allow him to fail the front-seater’s instruments at will -- a  holdover from the airplane’s days as a military trainer. The L-39 features some relatively  sophisticated systems, such as an automatic Ram Air Turbine (RAT) that pops out of the  fuselage and powers the electrical buses in the event of a main generator failure or engine failure;