piloto

It went to sea long before it went flying. The Greek root is an oar blade, and for most of its life a piloto was the person who steered a ship, especially the local expert who took a vessel through a harbour. Esperanto is old enough to have had the word in that sense before aeroplanes existed. Today the aviation reading is the default one, and the maritime specialist is usually spelled out as havena piloto or handed over to kapitano.

The aviation set, gathering in this chapter. Aviadilo is the aeroplane, flugi to fly, flugilo a wing, and surteriĝi - sur plus tero plus the -iĝ- of becoming - is what the aircraft does at the end: to come to be on the ground. That is one of the most satisfying builds in the language, and it lands in the same rank band as this word. Note that Esperanto does not need a separate root for "to take off" either: ekflugi, with the ek- of a sudden start.

Derivations. Piloti is to pilot something, pilotado the act of flying, pilotejo the cockpit - the place where the pilot is, built with the same -ej- you already use for lernejo. No new roots required.