The Daily Routine of an Aircraft- The Pilots View

Well in our previous blog we read how an aircraft would be treated by an engineer on a daily basis. We saw that the aircraft has to undergo a lot of checks by the engineer at the beginning of the day, followed by a lot more checks after its flight. We also learnt how vital an engineer could be for a pilot to complete his mission in a very placid manner. Now it is time for us to understand how a pilot treats these metallic birds on a daily basis.

Well the day for an aircraft with a pilot begins with the maintenance engineer handing over the aircraft to the pilot after his pre-flight check-up. Once the pilot takes over the aircraft from the engineer, the pilot does another check on the aircraft. The pilot goes around the whole aircraft and inspects the aircraft fitness manually. The process involves checking if the control surfaces are moving freely, inspection for physical damages to the aircraft (if any), clearing any debris that would have settled over the aircraft and also checking for any sort of liquid leakages and so on. Once the pilot has completed the inspection, he will continue for the flight. If he finds any snag in the aircraft he immediately reports it to the engineer and aborts the sortie, if not he will continue with the flight by accepting the aircraft responsibility from the engineer.

 Once the aircrafts responsibility is taken up by the pilot, he is first supposed to ask the air traffic controller (ATC) for permission to start the engine. Once the permission is given, the pilot starts the engine using the starters and increases throttle till the engine reaches a self-sustained idling RPM. After this the starter is disengaged from the main engine, and the engine idles while the pilot again asks for permission from ATC to move towards the runway. After approval from the ATC, the pilot taxis the aircraft till the end of the run way and aligns himself with the runway and stops with full brakes on.

After this the pilot waits for a clearance from the ATC for take-off, and once the clearance is given the pilot accelerates the engines by opening throttle and keeping the brakes on. Once the engine reaches sufficient speed, the brakes are opened the aircraft starts moving forward. During this period while the aircraft has just started rolling over the runway, the pilot first checks for effectiveness of the control surfaces (remember that for this, the aircraft should have attained at least the stall velocity or else the control surfaces don’t work effectively). If they are working fine, the pilot accelerates further to decision velocity. This the velocity at which the pilot decides to continue with the flight or abort it is called the decision velocity. The aborting of the flight could be due to various reasons which could include and not limit itself to; fire on board, failure of control surfaces; inappropriate acceleration of the engine and so on. Once the pilot has continued flight beyond this velocity, he shall not abort the flight under any condition. In case of any emergency beyond the decision velocity, the aircraft shall take off and come back for emergency landing if it is a multiple engine aircraft or the pilot will initiate emergency ejection in case of engine failure in a single engine aircraft. In any normal condition the pilot will continue with normal flight and accelerate to lift off velocity at which the aircraft will actually lift-off from the ground.

 Once the aircraft takes off, the pilot will start climbing till he reaches the flight altitude which is dependent on the mission of the aircraft (for civil aircrafts it is the cruise flight altitude). The aircraft after serving its mission purpose shall start descending and come down near the airfield where it is scheduled to land. Once it comes in range with the ATC of the airfield, the pilot asks the ATC for landing permission.

Once this permission is obtained and the run way is cleared for landing, the pilot shall again align the aircraft with the runway and start the approach. The pilot throttles down to idling RPM and continues for touch down with the flaps down and airbrakes on. Once the landing gears hit the runway, the brakes are actuated and the aircraft starts retarding drastically and comes slows down. After this the pilot again takes permission for the ATC for moving out to the taxi way from where the pilot shall taxi the aircraft till the hangar. At the hangar, the engines are turned off and the flight is completed. The pilot will then hand over the aircraft to the engineer with reports of the flight. The flight report would be the pilot’s experience of the flight and reporting any snags experienced during the flight.  

So that’s how an aircraft’s daily life would look like if you were a pilot living with the aircraft on a daily basis. Well technically it is also called as the flight profile of the aircraft. Stay tuned for more on these wonderful flying machines called aircrafts.

The Daily life of an Aircraft- an Engineers view

Hello everyone,

In this blog, I will be writing about the daily life an aircraft that is born could expect to live. The life cycle applies to both military as well as the civil class of aircrafts. So let’s get to the story and see how an aircraft’s daily life is.

An aircraft, as we all know, is a very sensitive yet powerful machine which has the capabilities to either fly with hundreds of passengers on board or fly really fast taking on the sound for a speed test or even do both( in very rare and exceptional cases). Whilst having such extraordinary capabilities, the aircrafts need to be maintained and their fitness for performing such tasks needs to be assessed and evaluated on a very regular basis. Since the aircraft carries human life on board, safety of life takes the highest priority in any aircraft mission. A typical day for an aircraft starts with a pre-fight

Inspection performed by the maintenance engineer and his team. During this inspection, every single aspect of the aircraft is very carefully examined by the engineer using all his senses and special equipment’s. He inspects for defects by using his ear to hear abnormalities, nose to smell any leakage of fuel or burns, his sense of touch to ensure everything is normal and finally sees and verifies everything is fit. Once the aircraft has completed this test by the flight maintenance engineer, it is handed over to the pilot. The pilot before taking charge of the aircraft, goes around the aircraft and completes his own pre- flight inspection of the aircraft which will include checks similar to that of the engineer but at a more relaxed scale. Once the pilot has completed his checks and ensured the aircraft is flight ready, he then takes charge of the aircraft. If in case the pilot finds any problem with the aircraft during his inspection, it is immediately reported to the maintenance engineer and asked to be fixed.

As a result the flight could get delayed or even cancelled depending upon the criticality and severity of the damage/snag detected by the pilot. Once the pilot takes over, the aircraft goes for a flight and performs the pre-planned mission, which would be flying from point A to point B in case of a civil aircraft or performing the mission tasks for a military class of aircraft. Once the aircraft has successfully completed its flight and comes and lands, the pilot hands over the aircraft to the engineer. While handing over, the pilot will mention to the engineer his flying experience. The pilot will report if he experienced any snag (major or minor) and his level of satisfaction with the flight. The engineer then takes over the aircraft and performs a routine check on the aircraft if the pilot was satisfied with the flight and did not have any snags to report. If the pilot has reported a snag, a regular check on the aircraft along with a special check with regard to the snag recorded by the pilot will be done on the aircraft. Once this is done an aircraft can be closed for the day, if it does not have any more flights. The next day, the cycle repeats with a pre-flight check beginning the day of an aircraft and the post flight checks closing.

A very important and key aspect to be noted here is that an aircraft always goes for a check before taking off irrespective of whether it had a post flight check or not. But a post flight check is always performed if the aircraft has another flight to perform soon after its landing. Between a landing and a take-off, there is always a minimum of one check performed on the aircraft to certify its fitness.

This is how the typical day of an aircraft looks from an engineer’s point of view. On my next blog I will try and explain the same from a pilot’s point of view. Because it is very evident from my writing above that an aircraft is under a pilots control for very less time. I will try and explain the various tasks an aircraft performs while under the control and commands of a pilot.

Cheers

T R