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.