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
No comments:
Post a Comment