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Battle of the Helmsmen will now commence. 8 pilots enter. 1 pilot leaves.
(startrek.website)
Highest upvoted helmsman in this thread will be declared best helmsman in the fleet.
Wesley, Ro, and Bozeman Tourist are eliminated immedietly, we never see them do anything fancy at all, they input courses and hit engage, that's it.
Of those remaining, Sulu is what most people think when they think fancy starship flying, but, if you really look at it, his top moments are manually flying a shuttle into a shuttle bay, and skillfully pulling rather relaxed but precise maneuvers piloting the Enterprise in V'Ger, the Bounty, and a Huey helicopter. No high speed are rapid maneuvering. So while he gets points for skill and for being able to fly anything he gets into, he's not the top pilot.
Detmer has shown some fancy flying, including combat maneuvers, but only on the Discovery. We don't know if she's as skilled if she's put into a shuttle or an atmospheric craft.
Mayweather, for all the failure to utilize his character, has been put in the hot seat with high pressure, rapid and precise maneuvering. Romulan minefields, combat against the Xindi, high warp precision formation flying, he really is a great pilot.
Ortega is right up there too, she flew into the accretion disk of a black hole while fighting the Gorn, even with her memory severely hampered she piloted the Enterprise through an asteroid field. She flies the ship, top marks, but...
Tom motherfucking Paris. This guy can fly through asteroid fields, through torn up subspace, fluidic space, quantum slipstream tunnels, shuttles, shuttles he designed, shuttles underwater, terrestrial vehicles, high speed combat maneuvers, you name it he can do it. Tom Paris is in my mind the unquestioned #1.
I like this breakdown, particularly the contrast between Ortegas and Paris. I think Ortegas is a better overall character, and gets big points for having her skills and progress matter to her character development. Paris, though, was an elite pilot before he showed up on Voyager, and then he spent years doing the most insane piloting anyone in Starfleet has ever seen. Ortegas is sort of the ideal of a relatable, blue-collar pilot with a promising career ahead of her, whereas Paris was a savant when he left with Voyager and a legend when he got home. He's a tier above everyone else on the list, you gotta hand it to him.