15 May 2012

I'm writing this blog from the comfort of my own bed! After being gone on a long four day trip I finally arrived back home at midnight. I'm off for a few days and I sure need it. I feel completely ran down. My work days are average of 12-13 hours from the time the van picks us up in the morning until I close the door of my hotel room that night. Lots of work in between.
People probably have very little idea what goes in to getting a jetliner off the ground safely so I thought I would take the time to tell you.
We are supposed to sign in on the computer 60 minutes prior to the first flight of the day. So we do some quick mental gymnastics the night before and figure out what time we need to leave the hotel the next day to get to the gate on time. If the airport is huge and the distance from drop off to the gate is great, add more time. Are we close to the airport or across town? Traffic? The van driver can tell us how long it will take at that particular time of day. Also add some time for getting through security. Average is about 1:15 minutes before takeoff, we depart the hotel.
We show up at the gate. One pilot pulls up the "paperwork" on the computer which includes all the calculated takeoff data we need. This was done by a geek, and a computer program back at HQ in Dallas. It also includes route of flight, fuel loads, weights, altitudes, speeds, turbulence, and check points. And lots of other route related info. And the "paperwork" includes notices to airmen, problems and hazards along the route of flight including at the destination airport, runway/taxiway closures and constructions, general notes to us air-crewman and airplane specific information such as any mechanical deficiencies with the airplane. A weather synopsis is also provided. The captain signs this paperwork signifying the pilots have reviewed everything and approve it. The paper work is about 25 pages long.
While one pilot pulls paperwork the other pilots does the preflight walk around and cockpit preflight safety checks. The walk around consists of checking tires, brakes and struts, wing surfaces, panels and general condition of the airplane. The Cockpit Preflight safety check Can be thought of in the following steps:
1. Flip the switch which allows ground external power to power the systems of the airplane or perform a fire safety check then start the Aircrafts own auxiliary power unit
2. Do a cockpit sweep checking each system's test function and ensuring each switch is in the desired position.
By now the gate agents are loading passengers on the airplane, And it's time to run the before starting engines checklist, 10 minutes prior checklist and the just prior to engine start or pushback checklist aka the "JP's".
These checklists are read in a challenge and response format. Meaning one guy reads the other performs the operation and responds. For example: oxygen switch ON etc
I included a picture of the entire checklists we run. There is another checklist located on the center console called the mechanical checklist which we run during taxi out and before landing. As you can see I'm pretty busy right before push back and I refer to the time right before I begin as me getting my game face on. More to follow on the next post